Sustainable Lithium-Metal Battery Achieved by a Safe Electrolyte Based on Recyclable and Low-Cost Molecular Sieve

As one typical clean-energy technologies, lithium-metal batteries, especially high-energy-density batteries which use concentrated electrolytes hold promising prospect for the development of a sustainable world. However, concentrated electrolytes with aggregative configurations were achieved at the expense of using extra dose of costly and environmental-unfriendly salts/additives, which casts a shadow over the development of a sustainable world. Herein, without using any expensive salts/additives, we employed commercially-available low-cost and environmental-friendly molecular sieves (zeolite) to sieve the solvation sheath of lithium ions of classic commercialized electrolyte (LiPF₆ -EC/DMC), and resulting in a unique zeolite sieved electrolyte which was more aggregative than conventional concentrated electrolytes. Inspiringly, the new-designed electrolyte exhibited largely enhanced anti-oxidation stability under high-voltage (4.6 volts) and elevated temperature (55 °C). NCM-811//Li cells assembled with this electrolyte delivered ultra-stable rechargeabilities (over 1000 cycles for half-cell; 300 cycles for pouch-cell). More importantly, sustainable NCM-811//Li pouch-cell with negligible capacity decay can also be obtained through using recyclable zeolite sieved electrolyte. This conceptually-new way in preparing safe and highly-efficient electrolyte by using low-price molecular sieve would accelerate the development of high-energy-density lithium-ion/lithium-metal batteries.