Meso-porous silicon-coated carbon nanotube as an anode for lithium-ion battery

Abstract

Meso-porous Si-coated carbon nanotube (CNT) composite powders were prepared by combining a sol‒gel method and the magnesiothermic reduction process. Meso-porous Si-coated CNT electrodes exhibit excellent cycle and rate performances as anodes in Li-ion batteries (LIBs), which can be attributed to the efficient accommodation of volume change from meso-porous Si structure and the enhanced electrical conductivity from CNT core. This simple synthesis and subsequent reduction process provide a scalable route for the large-scale production of Si-C composite nanostructures, which can be utilized in a variety of applications, such as in photocatalysis, photoelectrochemical cells (PECs), and LIBs.