Copper-coated Porous Polyimide as Ultralight and Safe Current Collectors for Advanced LIBs

Metallic copper is widely used as current collector(CC) for graphite anode of lithium-ion batteries(LIBs) due to its high electrical conductivity and electrochemical stability. However, the large volume density of commercial copper foil(~8.9 g·cm^(-3)) limits the increase of energy density of battery. Here, copper-coated porous polyimide(Cu@PPI) was prepared by vacuum evaporation as collector for the graphite anode. The sandwich structure connects the copper metal on both sides of the collector with excellent electrical conductivity. Compared to commercial Cu foil, Cu@PPI has lighter mass(≤3.9 mg for disc of 12 mm diameter versus 9.9 mg of ~10 μm Cu foil) and lower volume density(≤3.3 g·cm^(-3)). In addition, the porous structure allows of better adhesion of reactive substances and electrochemical properties than pure Cu foils. It is estimated that the energy density of Cu@PPI should be much higher than that of Cu foil. This strategy should be applicable for other current collectors.

Hot-pressed sintering of W/Cu functionally graded materials prepared from copper-coated tungsten powders

The three-layered(W-60 vol%Cu/W-40 vol%Cu/W-20 vol%Cu)W/Cu functionally graded material(FGM)containing a Cu network structure was fabricated at different temperatures by hot-pressed sintering produced from copper-coated tungsten powders.The effects of various sintering temperatures on relative density,microstructure,thermal conductivity,hardness and flexural strength were investigated.Scanning electron microscopy(SEM)and X-ray diffraction(XRD)analysis show that a Cu network extends throughout the W/Cu FGM specimens sintered at 1065℃and the graded structure can be retained perfectly,and W particles are distributed homogeneously.The low-temperature sintering densification of W/Cu FGM arises because the sintering mode of the copper-coated tungsten particles includes just sintering Cu to Cu,rather than Cu to W,Cu to Cu and W to W,as required for conventional powder particles.The relative density of W/Cu FGM sintered at 1065℃for 3 h under a load of25 MPa is 96.1%.The thermal conductivity is up to204 W·m^-1·K^-1 at normal temperature and 150 W·m^-1·K^-1at 800℃.And the Vickers hardness varies with the gradient of different layers from 3.34 to 4.05 GPa.