A 4 V Class Potassium Metal Battery with Extremely Low Overpotential

Abstract

K metal anodes usually have a low Coulombic efficiency and poor safety owing to their large volume variation and high chemical reactivity. In this study, a three-dimensional K (3D-K) anode is formed by plating metallic K into hollow N-doped C polyhedrons/ graphene (HNCP/G). Then a Sn-based solid electrolyte interphase layer is conformably coated onto the surface of 3D-K to construct Snp3D-K. Compared with the typical K-foil anode, the Sn@3D-K anode can significantly reduce the interfacial resistance, improve the 1C+ ion transport mobility, reduce parasitic reactions, and suppress the formation of K dendrites. Meanwhile, HNCP/G serves as a chemically stable, conductive host to accommodate the volume expansion/shrinkage of Sn@3D-K. Owing to these merits, the symmetric Sn@3D-K cell exhibits low voltage hysteresis (9 mV at 0.2 mA cm(-2) after 500 h; 31 mV at 1 mA cm(-2) after 100 h). When paired with a Prussian blue (PB)/graphene cathode, the K1.56Mn[Fe(CN)(6)](1.08)/G parallel to Sn@3D-K battery delivers an average discharge plateau of 4.02 V, an ultralow overpotential of 0.01 V, and a high specific capacity of 147.2 mAh g(-1), approaching the theoretical value of K2MnFe(CN)(6) (156 mAh g(-1)). A 4 V class K metal battery that exhibits extremely low overpotential and high specific capacity, which are the best among previously reported PB-based K batteries, is proposed.