Recent Advances in Carbon-Based Current Collectors/Hosts for Alkali Metal Anodes

The urgent demand for high-energy-density storage systems evokes the research upsurge on the alkali metal batteries with high theoretical capacities. However, the utilization of alkali metal anodes, including Li, Na, and K, is significantly hindered by notorious dendrite growth, undesirable corrosion, and unstable solid electrolyte interface. In order to resolve these issues, the carbon materials for the rational design of current collector/host that can regulate the plating/stripping behavior of alkali metal have been exploited. These carbon-based current collectors/hosts are featured with many pivotal advantages, including mechanical integrity to accommodate the volume change, superior electronic/ionic conductivity, large available surface area, and rich functionalization chemistries to increase the affinity to alkali metal. In this review, the recent progress on various dimensional carbon-based current collectors/hosts with different chemical components in stabilizing the alkali metal anodes through the regulation of initial deposition and subsequent growth behavior during plating/stripping process is provided. The nanostructured carbon scaffolds with self-affinity to alkali metals, as well as the carbon frameworks with internal/external affinitive sites to alkali metals, catalogued by various dimensions, are discussed in this review. Therefore, these appealing strategies based on the carbon-based current collectors/hosts can provide a paradigm for the realization of high-energy-density alkali metal batteries.