Stereolithography of 3D Sustainable Metal Electrodes towards High-Performance Nickel Iron Battery

摘要

The present-day ubiquity of smart devices used under extreme conditionsdemands robust and more sustainable energy storage. Therefore, lightweightelectrodes with both excellent electrochemical and mechanical performanceto meet these needs are of great importance. Moreover, the recycling ofcurrent energy storage devices poses significant environmental concerns, aparticularly daunting prospect given the increasing waste volume of metalbasedelectrodes. To that end, these challenges of performance and sustainabilityare addressed by leveraging accessible digital light processing (DLP)technology and tailored post-process heat treatment to fabricate a metalbased3D substrate with ultrahigh precision and hierarchical porosity. Here, a4-mm-thickness metal-based electrode with NiCo_2S_4 loading of 18.38 mg cm~(–2)achieves a high areal capacity of 7.327 mA h cm~(–2) at 44.85 mA cm~(–2), providinga promising way to fabricate high-performance thick electrodes. Most importantly,these electrodes can be fabricated from recyclable metal salt feedstock.The geometric freedom offered by 3D printing supplemented by finiteelement analyses allows for optimized complex structures to be fabricated.Through rational design realized by 3D printing, a desirable compromisebetween building density, mechanical properties, electrochemical performances,and environment-friendly processing cycle can be arrived upon.