Facile co-electrodeposition of amorphous silicon anode with embedded nickel nanoparticles for enhancing rate capability in lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

• Potentiostatic co-electrodeposition enables incorporation of Ni nanoparticles into Si matrix. • Crystalline Ni nanoparticles enhances total electrical conductivity of Si anode. • Ni particles effectively buffers the volume change of Si matrix during charge/discharge. • A high discharge capacity of 1633 mA h g −1 is retained after 100 charge-discharge cycles. Many efforts have been invested to improve the electrical conductivity and stability of Si anode, such as alloying and adding conductive additives, which unfortunately, are difficult for large scale manufacturing due to the complicated and expensive preparation techniques. In this work, a Si–Ni composite anode is prepared by a facile potentiostatic co-electrodeposition approach from organic solution. Correspondingly, it exhibits a capacity as high as 1633 mA h g − 1 after 100 charge-discharge cycles, whereas, Si–Ni composite anodes synthetized by previous approaches show specific capacity less than 1200 mA h g − 1 . It is believed that Ni nanoparticles with a diameter from 3 to 10 nm embedded in amorphous Si not only result in a lower resistance of Si–Ni anode compared with pristine Si anode, thus enhancing the rate performance, but also stabilize the integrity of the amorphous Si matrix, and buffer the volume change of Si anode during the lithiation–delithiation processes, thus improving the cycling performance.