Lithium-oxygen (Li-O₂) battery systems are known to have a high theoretical energy density that surpasses that of lithium ion batteries. If successfully developed, these batteries could find uses in applications with high energy demand such as future electric aircraft. However, many challenges still remain, including the air cathode’s intrinsically sluggish discharge and charge reaction rates that limit performance, round trip efficiency, and Coulombic efficiency, as well as many problems associated with the lithium anode (such as dendrite formation) and the electrolyte (such as instability at high voltage).

Most research on the air cathode of non-aqueous Li-O₂ batteries has focused on the choice of materials or catalysts that would improve the battery performance. However, the total capacities (best reflected by areal values) of the air cathodes are often low, typically limited by the areal mass loading, mostly less than 0.5 mg/cm², making it inefficient for practical applications. However, with the increase of the mass loading, the mass transport through the cathode thickness becomes more limited. Therefore, the cathode architecture to enable optimal battery reactions across the entire thickness is critical. Here we present an ultrahigh areal capacity air cathode platform based on holey graphene’s unique dry compressibility, which circumvents the mass loading limitation of current cathode architecture. The facileness in the solvent-free fabrication process of the cathode allows many different designs of the dense, but breathable air cathode architectures with ultrahigh areal loadings (on the order of 10 mg/cm²) and excellent battery performance in capacity, round trip efficiency, and cyclability.