Synergized Interface Engineering and Alloying Strategy for In Situ Construction of a Three-Dimensional Lithiophilic Carbon Skeleton: Motivating High-Performance Lithium Metal Batteries

Lithium metal is considered as a promising anode material for next-generation lithium batteries. However, challenges remain in terms of stability and cycle life in practical applications of lithium metal anodes. Herein, a lithium metal composite anode with a LiSn alloy coupled with a three-dimensional interconnected ZIF-67-derived carbon-modified carbon cloth (LiSn@CN@CC) is fabricated via the interface engineering and alloying strategy. The LiSn alloy as the nucleation center and Li₃N as lithophilic sites jointly promoted the uniform deposition of lithium, and the prepared electrodes effectively mitigate the volume expansion in Sn. Consequently, the LiSn@CN@CC||LiSn@CN@CC cell demonstrates favorable performance with enhanced long-term cyclic stability of over 1800 h at 1.0 mA cm^-2 and 1.0 mAh cm^-2 and an ultralow nucleation overpotential of 15 mV after 1400 h. Impressively, the LiSn@CN@CC||LiFePO₄ cell delivers a high capacity retention of 83.4% at 1 C after 300 cycles.