Achieving a Superior Lithium Metal Anode by a Hollow Nanocubic Carbon with an Inside-Out Lithiophilic Gradient (2025)

    Energy, Environmental, and Catalysis Applications

    • Hengji Zhu

      Hengji Zhu

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      More by Hengji Zhu

    • Tangchao Xie

      Tangchao Xie

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      More by Tangchao Xie

    • Bin Liang

      Bin Liang

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      More by Bin Liang

    • Zheping Lin

      Zheping Lin

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      More by Zheping Lin

    • Weitao Zheng

      Weitao Zheng

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      More by Weitao Zheng

    • Jialang He

      Jialang He

      More by Jialang He

    • Shiyun Xiong

      Shiyun Xiong

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      More by Shiyun Xiong

    • Yijuan Li*

      Yijuan Li

      Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Materials and Energy Storage Devices, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Energy Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China

      *Email: [emailprotected]

      More by Yijuan Li

    • Shaoming Huang*

      Shaoming Huang

      School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou 310024, PR China

      *Email: [emailprotected]

      More by Shaoming Huang

    Other Access OptionsSupporting Information (1)

    ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

    Cite this: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2025, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX

    Click to copy citationCitation copied!

    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.5c03058

    Published April 16, 2025

    Publication History

    • Received

    • Accepted

    • Revised

    • Published

      online

    research-article

    © 2025 American Chemical Society

    Request reuse permissions

    Abstract

    Click to copy section linkSection link copied!

    Achieving a Superior Lithium Metal Anode by a Hollow Nanocubic Carbon with an Inside-Out Lithiophilic Gradient (3)

    The lithium metal anode (LMA) offers high theoretical capacity and low electrochemical potential but faces challenges including uncontrolled dendrite growth, unstable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI), and infinite volume expansion. This study designs and constructs a nitrogen-doped hollow nanocubic carbon with an inside-out lithiophilic gradient (Co/ZnO-HNC) as the LMA host. On one hand, the inside-out gradient-lithiophilic ZnO and Co sites enable lithium nucleation and growth from the interior to exterior of the hollow carbon nanocube, inducing the dendrite-free Li plating/stripping. On the other hand, the hollow nanocubic structure provides confined space for Li storage and buffers the volume change of Li during cycling. Consequently, the Co/ZnO-HNC electrode exhibits an ultralow nucleation overpotential (3.7 mV) at 1 mA cm–2 and cycles stably for 300 times with an average Coulombic efficiency of 98.8% in half-cells. When matched with a commercial LiFePO4 cathode (20 mg cm–2), the full cell retains a 91.9% capacity retention over 200 cycles at 1 C with a high reversible capacity of 133.8 mAh g–1. Therefore, this work provides a scalable and effective strategy for designing gradient-lithiophilic frameworks to achieve high-performance lithium metal batteries.

    ACS Publications

    © 2025 American Chemical Society

    Subjects

    what are subjects

    Article subjects are automatically applied from the ACS Subject Taxonomy and describe the scientific concepts and themes of the article.

    • Deposition
    • Electrical properties
    • Electrochemical cells
    • Electrodes
    • Lithium

    Keywords

    what are keywords

    Article keywords are supplied by the authors and highlight key terms and topics of the paper.

    Read this article

    To access this article, please review the available access options below.

    Get instant access

    Purchase Access

    Read this article for 48 hours. Check out below using your ACS ID or as a guest.

    Recommended

    Access through Your Institution

    You may have access to this article through your institution.

    Your institution does not have access to this content. Add or change your institution or let them know you’d like them to include access.

    Recommended

    Log in to Access

    You may have access to this article with your ACS ID if you have previously purchased it or have ACS member benefits. Log in below.

    • Purchase access

      Purchase this article for 48 hours $48.00 Add to cart

      Purchase this article for 48 hours Checkout

    Cited By

    Click to copy section linkSection link copied!

    This article has not yet been cited by other publications.

    Download PDF

    Get e-Alerts

    Get e-Alerts

    ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

    Cite this: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2025, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX

    Click to copy citationCitation copied!

    Published April 16, 2025

    Publication History

    • Received

    • Accepted

    • Revised

    • Published

      online

    © 2025 American Chemical Society

    Request reuse permissions

    Article Views

    70

    Altmetric

    -

    Citations

    -

    Learn about these metrics

    Article Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.

    Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.

    The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated.

    Recommended Articles

    Achieving a Superior Lithium Metal Anode by a Hollow Nanocubic Carbon with an Inside-Out Lithiophilic Gradient (2025)
    Top Articles
    Latest Posts
    Recommended Articles
    Article information

    Author: Otha Schamberger

    Last Updated:

    Views: 5975

    Rating: 4.4 / 5 (75 voted)

    Reviews: 82% of readers found this page helpful

    Author information

    Name: Otha Schamberger

    Birthday: 1999-08-15

    Address: Suite 490 606 Hammes Ferry, Carterhaven, IL 62290

    Phone: +8557035444877

    Job: Forward IT Agent

    Hobby: Fishing, Flying, Jewelry making, Digital arts, Sand art, Parkour, tabletop games

    Introduction: My name is Otha Schamberger, I am a vast, good, healthy, cheerful, energetic, gorgeous, magnificent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.