Fabrication of a Nondegradable Si@SiOx/n-Carbon Crystallite Composite Anode for Lithium-Ion Batteries

A Si-based anode maintaining its high electrochemical performance with cycles was prepared for the non-degradable lithium-ion battery. Nanoscaled Si particles were mechanochemically coupled with approximately 3 nm thick oxide layer and n-carbon (nanoscaled carbon) crystallites to overcome silicon's inherent problems of poor electronic conductivity and severe volume change during lithiation and delithiation cycling. The oxide layer of SiOx was chemically formed via a controlled oxygen environment during the process; meanwhile, the n-carbon crystallites were obtained by mechanical fragmentation from similar to 70 mu m sized multilayered graphene powders with a low degree of agglomeration. The Si-based composite anode, processed by the above-mentioned mechanochemical coupling, maintained a superior discharge capacity of 1767 mA h/g through 100 cycles with a Coulombic efficiency exceeding 98% at a current density of 100 mA/g. According to our current study, the coupling of the Si particles with oxide layer and n-carbon crystallites was found to be a significantly efficient way to prevent the performance degradation of the Si-based anode.