Hollow Co2SiO4 microcube with amorphous structure as anode material for construction of high performance lithium ion battery

Abstract

To solve the problem of large volume expansion of cobalt silicate electrode during cyclic process and low electric conductivity, Co2SiO4 with amorphous, porous and hollow structure is firstly designed to act as high performance lithium ion battery (LIB) anode. Compared with crystalline materials, the amorphous Co2SiO4 microcube could facilitate Li+ diffusion to enhance their performance of LIBs because of isotropic characteristics. Here, the amorphous Co2SiO4 hollow microcube (named as a-Co2SiO4 HC) was prepared by mild hydrothermal method with use of MnCO3 microcube as hard-template. Benefitting from the advantages of such structure, Li+ diffusion rate was greatly accelerated and the volume expansion can be alleviated. The as-prepared amorphous Co2SiO4 hollow microcube as anode material of LIBs exhibited significantly improved electrochemical performance of 610 mAh g−1 even after 380 cycles at 500 mAh g−1 than their crystalline counterpart (only 280 mAh g−1 retained after 380 cycles). This work is a good try to employ amorphous metal silicate in LIBs and simultaneously motivate the exploration of other amorphous materials for high performance LIBs, SIBs, catalysts, etc.