An electrochemically active textile current collector with a high areal capacity and a strong energy recovery effect using an interfacial interaction assembly

Conventional current collectors in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are generally nonactive components. However, enhancing their electroactive properties and increasing the electroactive surface area can significantly improve the areal energy performance of next-generation battery electrodes. Herein, we introduce an electrochemically active textile current collector that delivers high energy storage performance, achieved through interfacial interaction assembly-induced electroplating. We first prepared metal nanoparticle/multiwalled carbon nanotube multilayer-incorporated cotton textiles using complementary interaction-mediated layer-by-layer assembly, and subsequently electroplated them with Cu. The resulting textile exhibited a high areal capacity of ∼3.27 mA h cm⁻² at 0.875 mA cm⁻², excellent cycling stability, and a strong energy recovery effect, thanks to the synergistic contributions of the large active surface area of the fibril structure, the robust interfacial assembly, and the formation of a metal oxide NP/pseudocapacitive polymeric gel-like phase at the electrode/electrolyte interface. Moreover, when incorporating Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ with a theoretical capacity of 175 mA h g ^{− 1} into our textile current collector, the specific capacity and areal capacity of the LIB anode can be increased up to ∼573 mA h g ^{− 1} and 8.60 mA h cm⁻² (at 15 mg cm⁻² LTO), respectively, outperforming those of previously reported LTO-based anodes.