Life cycle safety issues of lithium metal batteries: A perspective

The rising lithium metal batteries (LMBs) demonstrate a huge potential for improving the utilization duration of energy storage devices due to high theoretical energy density. Benefiting from the designs in the electrolyte, interface, and lithium host, several attempts have been made in the commercial application of LMBs. However, the application of lithium anode introduces additional safety risks and potential catastrophic accidents due to the high activity of lithium metal and dendrite during the electrochemical cycles. A comprehensive understanding of challenges and design issues on the safety hazards of LMBs in life cycle management is imperative for safe and commercial applications of LMBs. This paper first reviews emerging key safety issues and promising corresponding enhancements of LMBs during their production, utilization, and recycling. The wet air instability of lithium metal anode and gas production during activation have undoubtedly become the most intractable problems in LMBs production. It is necessary to use spraying technology to build a good protection layer upon lithium metal anode. Then, the growth of lithium dendrites poses a higher challenge to the utilization of LMBs, which requires the design of better electrolyte, anode skeleton, and other strategies as well as the prediction of LMBs life through big data and other methods. As for LMBs recovery, it is of great significance to choose the solvent to effectively control the consumption rate and temperature of highly reactive lithium metal powder. At last, further appeals and improvements are proposed for inspiring more related research to push forward the commercial use of LMBs.