Copper-Plated Paper for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries

Paper is emerging as a promising flexible, high surface-area substrate for various new applications such as printed electronics, energy storage, and paper-based diagnostics. Many applications, however, require paper that reaches metallic conductivity levels, ideally at low cost. Here, an aqueous electroless copper-plating method is presented, which forms a conducting thin film of fused copper nanoparticles on the surface of the cellulose fibers. This paper can be used as a current collector for anodes of lithium-ion batteries. Owing to the porous structure and the large surface area of cellulose fibers, the copper-plated paper-based half-cell of the lithium-ion battery exhibits excellent rate performance and cycling stability, and even outperforms commercially available planar copper foil-based anode at ultra-high charge/discharge rates of 100 C and 200 C. This mechanically robust metallic-paper composite has promising applications as the current collector for light-weight, flexible, and foldable paper-based 3D Li-ion battery anodes.