Evidence of covalent synergy in silicon-sulfur-graphene yielding highly efficient and long-life lithium-ion batteries.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26497228.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms9597 and PMC identifier 4639807.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Silicon has the potential to revolutionize the energy storage capacities of lithium-ion batteries to meet the ever increasing power demands of next generation technologies. To avoid the operational stability problems of silicon-based anodes, we propose synergistic physicochemical alteration of electrode structures during their design. This capitalizes on covalent interaction of Si nanoparticles with sulfur-doped graphene and with cyclized polyacrylonitrile to provide a robust nanoarchitecture. This hierarchical structure stabilized the solid electrolyte interphase leading to superior reversible capacity of over 1,000 mAh g(-1) for 2,275 cycles at 2 A g(-1). Furthermore, the nanoarchitectured design lowered the contact of the electrolyte to the electrode leading to not only high coulombic efficiency of 99.9% but also maintaining high stability even with high electrode loading associated with 3.4 mAh cm(-2). The excellent performance combined with the simplistic, scalable and non-hazardous approach render the process as a very promising candidate for Li-ion battery technology.