About this Research Topic
Rechargeable batteries have had a profound impact on our daily life, but the inherent limitations of conventional batteries make them scarcely possible to meet the rapidly growing demand for energy density. Thus, the development of next-generation high-energy-density batteries is highly desired. Along this line, metal batteries with Li metal, Na metal, K metal and Zn metal et al. anodes drove the recent renaissance, due to the high theoretical capacity and low electrochemical potential of metal anodes. However, the metal anodes generally suffer from severe irreversibility issues caused by low interfacial stability and dendrite growth during repeated metal plating/stripping processes. Therefore, massive efforts should be directed towards stabilizing the metal anodes and promote the industrialization of high-energy metal batteries.
Uncontrolled dendrite growth and low interfacial stability during cycling the metal anodes lead to rapid capacity decay and safety concerns, thus severely hindering the practical application. To deal with these issues, we need to attain profound understandings of interfacial chemistries, metal deposition behavior and the correlations among them. The detailed strategies to stabilize the metal anodes include but not limited to the following: (1) Stabilize SEI by interface engineerings such as electrolyte modification and surface modification with artificial SEI; (2) Minimize volume change by constructing stable hosts; (3) Prevent dendrite propagation by use of polymer or solid electrolytes. In addition to solving the intrinsic electrochemical issues, other designs and improvements for full cell and safe battery operation are also worth exploring.
The scope of this Research Topic includes an in-depth understanding of issues and challenges of metal anodes as well as the stabilization of metal anodes. All the manuscripts must be linked to the metal anodes and metal batteries and be of significant general interest to our community readership. All scales of studies and analysis about science, designs and applications are welcomed. The types of manuscripts could be Original Research and Review articles. Themes include, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) Fundamental understand and mechanism study of metal anodes
(2) Stabilization of metal anode
(3) Study of metal batteries
(4) Designs for metal batteries and safe battery operation
Keywords: Li metal, Na metal, K metal, Zn metal, Metal anode
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
