High performance porous Si@C anodes synthesized by low temperature aluminothermic reaction. (10th April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mishra, Kuber; Zheng, Jianming; Patel, Rajankumar; Estevez, Luis; Jia, Haiping; Luo, Langli; El-Khoury, Patrick Z.; Li, Xiaolin; Zhou, Xiao-Dong; Zhang, Ji-Guang
• Is Part Of: Electrochimica acta. Volume 269(2018)
• Page Start: 509
• Page End: 516
• Publication Date: 2018-04-10
• Subjects: Porous si -- Li-ion battery -- Aluminothermic reduction reaction; Electrochemistry -- Periodicals; Electrochemistry, Industrial -- Periodicals; 541.37
• DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2018.02.166
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-4686

Abstract

Abstract: A low temperature (210 °C) aluminothermic reaction process using a eutectic mixture of AlCl3 and ZnCl2 as the mediator has been developed to synthesize porous silicon (Si) as an anode for lithium (Li)-ion battery applications. With carbon pre-coating on the porous SiO2 precursor, carbon coated porous Si (p-Si@C) core-shell structured anodes could be obtained with architecture and morphology similar to that of the porous SiO2 precursor. The carbon coating network not only facilitates the electron and Li + ion transportation, but also offers good mechanical support minimizing the particle pulverization that is associated with the large volume change of Si during lithiation/delithiation. As a result, p-Si@C anode demonstrates a high specific capacity of ∼2100 mAh g −1 at the current density of 1.2 A g −1 and significantly improved capacity retention of ∼89% over 250 cycles, which is much better than that of p-Si. Therefore, p-Si@C is promising anode for high-energy-density Li-ion batteries. The similar low temperature synthesis approach can also be used to prepare other functional materials.