Industrial Silicon-Wafer-Wastage-Derived Carbon-Enfolded Si/Si-C/C Nanocomposite Anode Material through Plasma-Assisted Discharge Process for Rechargeable Li-Ion Storage.

Rasu Muruganantham,Chih-Wei Yang,Wei-Ren Liu,Hong-Jyun Wang,Chia-Hung Huang

doi:10.3390/nano12040659

Abstract

Silicon is a promising anode material for high-performance Li-ion batteries as a result of its high theoretical specific capacity and elemental abundance. Currently, the commercial application of the Si-based anode is still restricted by its large volume changes during the lithiation cycles and low electrical conductivity. To address these issues, we demonstrate a facile plasma-assisted discharge process to anchor nano-sized Si particles into methanol with quick quenching. After the subsequent sintering process, we obtained a Si/SiC/C composite (M-Si). The unique structure not only allowed for the electrolyte infiltration to enhance lithium ion diffusion during charge and discharge process, but also buffered the volume expansion of silicon particles to enhance the rate capability and cycle stability. The M-Si cell electrochemical results exposed good Li-ion storage performance compared to that of the bare Si used cell (B-Si). The electrode cell consisting of M-Si exhibited remarkable enhanced cyclic stability and sustained the reversible specific capacity of 563 mAhg−1 after 100 cycles, with a coulombic efficiency of 99% at a current density of 0.1C, which is higher than that of the B-Si electrode cell that was used. Hence, the as-prepared Si/SiC/C composite is an efficient anode material for Li-ion battery applications. Moreover, these results indicate that the novel plasma-assisted discharge technique will bring a potential durable methodology to produce novel high-performance electrode materials for future advanced large-scale energy-storage applications.

Highlights

Introduction iationsNowadays, the technology industry is prosperous, and people’s living habits are based on 3C products; the intelligent functions, such as mobile Internet access, video/audio playback, and cloud information reception, give these electronic products a large electrical storage capacity for power supply [1,2]
The Si (Si wafer: Purity 7N Si, SK Siltron Ltd., Gumi, Korea) and methanol (Purity 99.9%, Methanex) solution were both filled in a self-made plasma reaction chamber, in which stainless steel was used as an electrode
Silicon wafer was cut into strips with a width of 1 mm and a length of 100 mm as electrodes, and argon gas was injected into the chamber as a protective atmosphere

Summary

Materials and Synthesis

The Si (Si wafer: Purity 7N Si, SK Siltron Ltd., Gumi, Korea) and methanol (Purity 99.9%, Methanex) solution were both filled in a self-made plasma reaction chamber, in which stainless steel was used as an electrode. After the silicon falls into methanol, it forms round silicon spheres due to high thermal plasma reaction chamber, in which stainless steel was used as an electrode. Silicon wafer was cut into strips with a width of 1 mm and a length of 100 mm as electrodes, and argon gas was injected into the chamber as a protective atmosphere. The electrodes were cut into discs with a diameter of 1.2 cm, and the active Si-mass stacking was 1.8–2.0 mg/cm

Fabrication of Lithium-ion

Results and Discussion

Conclusions