Nano/Microstructured Silicon–Carbon Hybrid Composite Particles Fabricated with Corn Starch Biowaste as Anode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries

Abstract

Silicon has a great potential as an alternative to graphite which is currently used commercially as an anode material in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) because of its exceptional capacity and reasonable working potential. Herein, a low-cost and scalable approach is proposed for the production of high-performance silicon–carbon (Si–C) hybrid composite anodes for high-energy LIBs. The Si–C composite material is synthesized using a scalable microemulsion method by selecting silicon nanoparticles, using low-cost corn starch as a biomass precursor and finally conducting heat treatment under C3H6 gas. This produces a unique nano/microstructured Si–C hybrid composite comprised of silicon nanoparticles embedded in micron-sized amorphous carbon balls derived from corn starch that is capsuled by thin graphitic carbon layer. Such a dual carbon matrix tightly surrounds the silicon nanoparticles that provides high electronic conductivity and significantly decreases the absolute stress/strain of the material during multiple lithiation-delithiation processes. The Si–C hybrid composite anode demonstrates a high capacity of 1800 mAh g–1, outstanding cycling stability with capacity retention of 80% over 500 cycles, and fast charge–discharge capability of 12 min. Moreover, the Si–C composite anode exhibits good acceptability in practical LIBs assembled with commercial Li­[Ni0.6Co0.2Mn0.2]­O2 and Li­[Ni0.80Co0.15Al0.05]­O2 cathodes.

Nanoscopically and uniformly distributed SnO2@TiO2/C composite with highly mesoporous structure and bichemical bonds for enhanced lithium ion storage performances

“…7c and d), which are higher than the values of the reported full cells of graphite/LiCoO 2 and graphite/LiFePO 4 . [33][34][35] The gravimetric energy density of the full cell can be calculated by the following eqn (3): 36 Energy density W h kg À1 À Á C cathode  m cathode…”

“…The mass values of the inactive materials and electrolyte should be a fixed value in batteries, but they are absent in eqn (3), because they are unclear for us. In academic studies, researchers are more inclined to use the simplified eqn (3) to calculate the energy density, [33][34][35][36] because it still makes sense in that the higher the energy density calculated by this simplified equation, the higher the energy density when calculated with all materials included, suggesting the reference value of this calculated density. The high stability of the electrode structure was verified by SEM and TEM analysis of the electrode after 2000 cycles at 10C.…”

Porous Si/Fe2O3 Dual Network Anode for Lithium–Ion Battery Application

“…BM-24-4 and BM-72-4 electrodes show relatively low reversible capacity after cycling for 100 cycles. The huge capacity decay is induced by the serious volume variation during the cycling process, the crushing of active Si particles, the cracking of nanosheets structure, the creation of over-thick SEI film and the failure of electron and ion transport channels during the cycling process [49]. The difference in the electrochemical performance of a material in different tests in this work may be caused by the local non-uniformity of a material.…”

Pomegranate-Like Structured Si@SiOx Composites With High-Capacity for Lithium-Ion Batteries

“…Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been widely used in portable electronics, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage systems owing to their high energy density, long cycling stability, and environmental friendliness (Armand and Tarascon, 2008 ; Yu et al, 2018 ; Zuo et al, 2019 ; Kwon et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Wang K. et al, 2020 ). Nowadays, the traditional commercial anode graphite (372 mAh g −1 ) is not able to meet increasing demands for higher energy density.…”

“…The SEI layer continuously grows and irreversibly consumes lithium-ions in the electrolyte, leading to inferior lithium-ion kinetics and poor electrochemical performance. Moreover, the Si anode is a semiconductor with poor conductivity, which is not conducive to delivering capacity (Zheng et al, 2019 ; Zuo et al, 2019 ; Kwon et al, 2020 ).…”