Abstract
High-performance flexible electrodes can be realized by nested wrinkle texturing of graphene, which serves as stress-release scaffold to achieve high stretchability as well as excellent electrochemical performances.
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Flexible lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are critical for the development of next-generation smart electronics. Conversion reaction-based electrodes have been considered promising to construct high energy–density flexible LIBs, which satisfy the ever-increasing demand for practical use. However, these electrodes suffer from inferior lithium-storage performance and structural instability during deformation and long-term lithiation/delithiation. These are caused by the sluggish reaction kinetics of active-materials and the superposition of responsive strains originating from the large lithiation-induced stress and applied stress. Here, we propose a stress-release strategy through elastic responses of nested wrinkle texturing of graphene, to achieve high deformability while maintaining structural integrity upon prolonged cycles within high-capacity electrodes. The wrinkles endow the electrode with a robust and flexible network for effective stress release. The resulting electrode shows large reversible stretchability, along with excellent electrochemical performance including high specific capacity, high-rate capability and long-term cycling stability. This strategy offers a new way to obtain high-performance flexible electrodes and can be extended to other energy-storage devices.