Photo cured 3D porous silica-carbon (SiO2–C) membrane as anode material for high performance rechargeable Li-ion batteries

Abstract

Silicon based anode materials has got significant attention in recent years due to its environmental affinity, lower cost and high capacity in lithium ion batteries. The Photo cured 3D porous Silica-carbon membrane (SiO2–C material) was synthesized via binary phase solid state photo-polymerization, freeze dried to obtain porous membrane and then used as template to get silica deposited membrane by chemical vapor deposition method (CVD) at 30 °C, followed by calcination. The silicon deposition has been confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The Barret-Joyner-Halenda (BJH) pore size distribution results showed the pore size of 10.2924 nm and surface area of 21.1957 m2/g with cumulative pore volume of 0.040248 cm³/g. The first discharge capacity reached to 719 mAhg−1 with 79.94% columbic efficiency regarding first cycle and discharge capacity for 100 cycles reached to 693 mAhg−1 with 99% columbic efficiency, which indicated high reaction reversibility. The silicon deposition with a porous structure improved the electronic conductivity and stabilized the material. The better electrochemical performance observed could be due to porous structure and carbon matrix of SiO2–C material.