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Lv et al. Energy Mater 2024;4:400018 Energy Materials
DOI: 10.20517/energymater.2023.90

Article Open Access

Tuning wettability of gallium-based liquid metal

anode for lithium-ion battery via a metal mixing
strategy

Yang Lv , Honghao Hu, Xizheng Liu *

Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Porous Materials, Institute for New Energy Materials and Low-Carbon
Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300380, China.
*Correspondence to: Prof. Xizheng Liu, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Porous Materials, Institute for New Energy
Materials and Low-Carbon Technologies, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300380, China. E-mail: xzliu@tjut.edu.cn

How to cite this article: Lv Y, Hu H, Liu X. Tuning wettability of gallium-based liquid metal anode for lithium-ion battery via a
metal mixing strategy. Energy Mater 2024;4:400018. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/energymater.2023.90

Received: 6 Nov 2023 First Decision: 24 Jan 2024 Revised: 5 Feb 2024 Accepted: 6 Mar 2024 Published: 14 Mar 2024
Academic Editors: Cheol-min Park, Xiongwei Wu Copy Editor: Fangling Lan Production Editor: Fangling Lan

Abstract
Exploring highly stable alloy-type anodes for rechargeable lithium batteries is urgent with the ever-increasing
demands for high energy density batteries. The liquid metal (LM)-based anodes demonstrate great potential in
advanced lithium-ion batteries due to their high energy densities and self-healing performance. However, its high
surface tension leads to poor wettability towards the current collector and higher interfacial contact resistance. In
this study, we developed a new free-standing LM-based anode LM-W10/Cu foil with good wettability and
machinability by mixing high-melting-point tungsten (W) nanoparticles. It greatly improves the inherent defects of
poor interfacial contact and lithium diffusion kinetics between the LM and current collectors, reduces the tedious
and costly electrode manufacturing process, and regulates lithium deposition behaviors. And this metal mixing
strategy has a negligible effect on the self-healing nature of LM. Symmetric cells of LM-W10/Cu foil anodes
displayed a low overpotential (~13 mV) and cycled stably for more than 8,000 h (4,000 cycles) at 0.5 or
2
1 mA/cm ; full cells coupled with LiFePO cathode showed a high capacity retention of 95.15% after 150 cycles.
4
Keywords: Liquid alloy anodes, low surface tension, high viscosity, regulates lithium deposition, high-melting-point
W nanoparticles

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
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