Hard or turbostratic carbon anodes are most often derived from thermolysis of biomass in oxygen free environments and considerable data has been accrued to suggest that low specific surface area HC offers the most stable materials for lithiation and sodiation. As part of our efforts to valorize rice hull ash (RHA, 90 wt % SiO2/8 wt % C), produced in 150k ton/yr in the U.S. alone; we learned to first distillatively remove excess SiO2 to produce silica depleted RHA or SDRHA40-70 (40-70 wt.% SiO2).1 The resulting materials are nanocomposites of carbon and SiO2 intermixed at nm length scales.2 The SDRHA carbon can be used as a reductant, and because of the very small diffusion distances, SDRHAxxcan be carbothermally reduced to electronics grade silicon (SiPV, 5’9’s purity)3 or SiC (Ar) or Si2N2O (90N2/10H2) or Si3N4 (N2) at much lower temperatures (1250°-1500 °C)4 than those used to produce the same materials commercially and at higher purities. At certain ratios, HC is a coproduct also intimately mixed with the major silicon containing material.We have previously found that SiC/HC mixtures can serve as anode materials (coin cells) offering capacities of ≈ 950 mAh/g after long term cycling. This usually is with HC contents of just 10-15 wt. %. In this talk we explore increasing the ratio of HC:SiC via carbothermal reduction of lower wt. % SiO2:C ratios in SDRHA40 to assess the effects on LIB capacity and rates of change and as time permits, sodium ion battery (NIB) properties. References (1) Laine, R. M.; Furgal, J. C.; Doan, P.; Pan, D.; Popova, V.; Zhang, X. Avoiding Carbothermal Reduction: Distillation of Alkoxysilanes from Biogenic, Green, and Sustainable Sources. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55 1065–1069. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201506838.(2) Mengjie Yu; Eleni Temeche; Richard M. Laine. M. Yu, E. Temeche, R. M. Laine, Methods of Adjusting Carbon and Silica Content in Rice Hull Ash (RHA) Byproducts to Control Carbothermal Reduction Forming Nanostructured Silicon Car-Bide, Silicon Nitride, Silicon Oxynitride Nanocomposites,” Provisional Patent Application Filed Sept. 5, 2020.(3) Marchal, J. C.; Krug III, D. J.; McDonnell, P.; Sun, K.; Laine, R. M. A Low Cost, Low Energy Route to Solar Grade Silicon from Rice Hull Ash (RHA), a Sustainable Source. Green Chem. 2015, 17 (7), 3931–3940. https://doi.org/10.1039/C5GC00622H.(4) Temeche, Eleni; Yu, Mengjie; Laine, R. M. Silica Depleted Rice Hull Ash (SDRHA), an Agricultural Waste, as a High-Performance Hybrid Lithium-Ion Capacitor. Green Chemistry 2020, 22, 4656–4668.
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