Chemical-free production of surface-stabilized lithium metal particles, electrodes and lithium battery containing same

A method of producing graphene-stabilized lithium metal particles directly from a graphitic material, said method comprising:

• a) mixing multiple particles of a graphitic material, multiple polymer-coated solid particles of a lithium-attracting seed material, and optional ball-milling media to form a mixture in an impacting chamber of an energy impacting apparatus, wherein said impacting chamber contains therein no previously produced isolated graphene sheets;
• b) operating said energy impacting apparatus with a frequency and an intensity for a length of time sufficient for peeling off graphene sheets from said particles of graphitic material and transferring said peeled graphene sheets to surfaces of said polymer-coated particles and fully embrace or encapsulate said particles to produce graphene-embraced or graphene-encapsulated polymer-coated solid particles inside said impacting chamber;
• c) recovering said graphene-embraced or graphene-encapsulated polymer-coated solid particles from said impacting chamber and removing said polymer from said particles to produce graphene balls, wherein at least one of said graphene balls has a graphene shell, a lithium-attracting seed material particle and a hollow space;
• and
• d) impregnating said graphene balls with lithium metal to obtain said graphene-stabilized lithium metal particles.