Abstract
Silicon anodes have attracted considerable attention for their use in lithium-ion batteries because of their extremely high theoretical capacity; however, they are prone to extensive volume expansion during lithiation, which causes disintegration and poor cycling stability. In this article, we use two approaches to address this issue, by reducing the size of the Si particles to nanoscale and incorporating them into a carbon composite to help modulate the volume expansion problems. We improve our previous work on the solution-plasma-mediated synthesis of Si nanoparticles (NPs) by adjusting the electrolyte medium to mild buffer solutions rather than strong acids, successfully generating Si-NPs with <10 nm diameters. We then combined these Si-NPs with carbon using MgO-template-assisted sol-gel combustion synthesis, which afforded porous carbon composite materials. Among the preparations, the composite material obtained from the LiCl 0.2 M + H3BO3 0.15 M solution-based Si-NPs exhibited a high reversible capacity of 537 mAh/g after 30 discharge/charge cycles at a current rate of 0.5 A/g. We attribute this increased reversible capacity to the decreased particle size of the Si-NPs. These results clearly show the applicability of this facile and environmentally friendly solution-plasma technique for producing Si-NPs as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries.
Highlights
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely used as energy-storage devices for applications such as portable electronic devices and electric vehicles
The silicon nanoparticles (Si-NPs) were synthesized using solution plasma generated by contact glow discharge electrolysis (CGDE)
Si nanoparticles (Si-NPs) were synthesized via a facile solution-plasma-mediated synthesis, and composites consisting of Si-NPs and porous carbon were fabricated as the anode materials for lithium-ion batteries
Summary
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely used as energy-storage devices for applications such as portable electronic devices and electric vehicles. During the lithium insertion-extraction process, a large volume change (>280%) inevitably occurs, which leads to pulverization of the silicon anode and loss of electrical contact with the current collector, resulting in poor cycling performance [2,5] To mitigate this volume-change issue, several strategies have been proposed, including reducing the particle size to nanoscale [6,7], fabricating Si nanostructures such as nanowires and nanoporous materials [8,9,10,11], utilizing hollow core-shell structures [12], and dispersing nano-Si in a conductive carbon matrix to form Si-carbon composites [13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. Dispersing silicon nanoparticles (Si-NPs) into a carbon matrix is a technique that has been well developed; here, the carbonaceous material acts to buffer the volume expansion and improves the electrical conductivity of the Si active materials [13]
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