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The formation of Li dendrites and dead Li, which causes short circuits, continuous side reactions, low Coulombic efficiency (CE), and thermal runaway, significantly hinders the development of anode-free lithium metal batteries (AFLMBs). This study proposes a simple and effective method to construct an HCl-doped polyaniline modification layer on Cu foil (HPC) through chemical polymerization. The polyaniline modification layer exhibits a stable structure and good electrical conductivity after HCl doping, where the protonated and doped imide structure shows excellent lithiophilicity during cycling, promoting uniform Li deposition as a Li ion redistributor. This approach effectively suppresses dendrite growth, enhances the stability of the solid-state interphase at the anode, and extends cell cycle life. As a result, the anode-free half-cell with HPC current collector exhibits reduced overpotential of 20.6 mV and prolonged cycling life over 150 cycles at an areal capacity of 1 mA h cm –2 and a plating/stripping rate of 1.2 mA cm –2 /2 mA cm –2 . Capacity retention of 63.81% and 74.01% is achieved after 100 cycles in the anode-free ( N / P = 0) and anode-less ( N / P = 1.6) full cells, respectively. This work creatively introduces a conductive polymer into the AFLMB system, enhancing our understanding of Li plating-stripping regulation strategies and offering new insights into the development of AFLMBs.
Li et al. (Tue,) studied this question.