To summary, table 1 has make conclusions about the various kinds of binary and multi-component Li-containing alloys anodes as well as their advantages and disadvantages. As can be seen, there are not perfect lithium alloys used as the anodes. It is impossible to solve the problem simply by replacing lithium metal with lithium alloys. Thus, combining the lithium alloys with other materials, such as graphene, polymers, etc., to overcome the weak links of lithium alloys have been proposed.
In order to solve some of the lithium alloys instability in air, Cui’s group developed densely packed Lix M (M=Si, Sn, or Al) nanoparticles encapsulated by large graphene sheets as shown in Figure 3a[39]. With the protection of graphene sheets, the large and freestanding Lix M/graphene foils are stable in different air conditions. Among the representative Lix Si/graphene foil maintained a stable structure and cyclability in half cells (400 cycles with 98% capacity retention). And when paired with high-capacity Li-free V2O5 and sulfur cathodes, stable full-cell cycling could also achieve. And the alloy electrodes have a high reduction potential, leading to low energy density. To overcome drastic volume variation during Li insertion/extraction cycles, except to prepare superfine alloy particles that have small absolute volume variation or constructing ternary alloy that contain an inactive metal to inhibit the great volume expansion, but also can encapsulate the lithium alloys in the flexible and elastic polymer matrix. For example, Cui’s group reported a polymer supported Li-Zn alloy structure as shown in Figure 3b[100]. They used the ALD method to deposit the ZnO on the polymide (PI) fiber. The core-shell PI-ZnO matrix was put into contact with molten Li, ZnO reacted with molten Li to form Li-Zn alloy and simultaneously extra Li can be drawn into the polymer matrix, affording a Li-coated PI electrode. Thanks to the polymer shell, the lithium alloys crack and pulverization can be alleviated.