Abstract
Achieving extremely fast charging yet maintaining high energy density remains a challenge in the battery field. Traditional current collectors, being impermeable to electrolytes, hinder the movement of Li+ ions and restrict the high-rate capability of thick electrodes. Here we conceptualize a porous current collector for energy-dense and extremely fast-charging batteries. This porous design allows Li+ ions to pass through both the current collector and the separator simultaneously, thereby reducing the effective Li+ transport distance by half and quadrupling the diffusion-limited C-rate capability without compromising the energy density. Multilayer pouch cells equipped with this current collector demonstrate high specific energy (276 Wh kg−1) and remarkable fast-charging capabilities at rates of 4 C (78.3% state of charge), 6 C (70.5% state of charge) and 10 C (54.3% state of charge). This porous current collector design is compatible with existing battery manufacturing processes and other fast-charging strategies, enriching battery configurations for designing next-generation batteries.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. S.T.O. acknowledges support from the TomKat Center Fellowship for Translational Research at Stanford University. We thank the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities and the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility for the SEM, contact angle, tensile strength characterizations and Lesker sputter fabrication. We thank Dupont for providing the porous Kevlar film.
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Y.Y. and Y.C. conceived the concept. R.X., Y.M. and T.Y. performed the COMSOL simulation. W.H., F.L. and T.L. helped with the battery pressure testing and analysis. H.A., W.Z., J.O.A., A.C., Z.C., X.X., Z.Z., Y.P. and S.T.O. assisted with electrochemical experiments. Y.W. carried out the electronic conductivity measurement. X.G., H.K., R.M., Y.S., Y.M., T.Y. and Y.N. helped with the device fabrication, simulation and data analysis. Y.Y. and Y.C. wrote the paper. W.Z., R.A.V. and Y.C. revised the paper. All the authors contributed to the discussion of the results.
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H.K., Y.S., R.M., Y.M., T.Y. and Y.N. are employed by Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Ye, Y., Xu, R., Huang, W. et al. Quadruple the rate capability of high-energy batteries through a porous current collector design. Nat Energy (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01473-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01473-2