Abstract
Progress in extending the cycle life of lithium metal batteries has primarily been achieved through strategies focused on slow charging and fast discharging conditions, with limited practical impact. However, accelerated performance degradation under the opposite operation protocols—fast charging and slow discharging—remains a challenge. Here, we introduce (difluoromethyl)trimethylsilane with a large electrostatic potential difference as a diluent for localized high-concentration electrolytes. The presence of this diluent limits the size of ion clusters and promotes the transfer of Li ions through the swollen solid-electrolyte-interphase layer for robust fast charging. The diluent also increases electrode polarization, which leads to spatially uniform Li stripping sites and allows reliable discharging even at low current densities. As a result, the electrolyte achieves an average Coulombic efficiency of 98.12% even at 12 mA cm−2 in Li | |Cu asymmetric cells. In full cells, a state-of-charge of 77.3% is achieved within 6 minutes while retaining 81.3% capacity after 200 cycles at a 10 C charging rate, demonstrating their stability under fast-charging and slow-discharging protocols.
Data availability
The data generated in this study are provided in the Supplementary Information and Source Data file. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
J.W.C. acknowledges financial support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (RS-2024-00335274 and RS-2023-00261543) and generous support from the Institute of Engineering Research (IOER), the Institute for Battery Research Innovation (IBRI), and the Research Institute of Advanced Materials (RIAM) at Seoul National University. This work was also supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) (Grant No. Sinergia CRSII5_202296).
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M.K. and J.K. contributed equally to this work. M.K., J.K., and J.W.C. conceived the idea. M.K. and J.K. performed the electrochemical measurements and physicochemical characterizations. M.K. conducted the DFT calculations and X-ray scattering analyses. J.K. conducted the MD simulations. M.B. assisted in conceptualizing the research. J.O. and J.L. contributed to the electrochemical measurements. M.K., J.K., A.C., and J.W.C. wrote the manuscript. A.C. and J.W.C. supervised the project. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Kim, M., Kim, J., Baek, M. et al. Electrolyte diluent with large electrostatic potential difference for fast charging and slow discharging lithium metal batteries. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69870-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69870-7
