Scalable Production of the Silicon–Tin Yin-Yang Hybrid Structure with Graphene Coating for High Performance Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes

Abstract

Alloy anodes possessed of high theoretical capacity show great potential for next-generation advanced lithium-ion battery. Even though huge volume change during lithium insertion and extraction leads to severe problems, such as pulverization and an unstable solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI), various nanostructures including nanoparticles, nanowires, and porous networks can address related challenges to improve electrochemical performance. However, the complex and expensive fabrication process hinders the widespread application of nanostructured alloy anodes, which generate an urgent demand of low-cost and scalable processes to fabricate building blocks with fine controls of size, morphology, and porosity. Here, we demonstrate a scalable and low-cost process to produce a porous yin-yang hybrid composite anode with graphene coating through high energy ball-milling and selective chemical etching. With void space to buffer the expansion, the produced functional electrodes demonstrate stable cycling performance of 910 mAh g over 600 cycles at a rate of 0.5C for Si-graphene "yin" particles and 750 mAh g over 300 cycles at 0.2C for Sn-graphene "yang" particles. Therefore, we open up a new approach to fabricate alloy anode materials at low-cost, low-energy consumption, and large scale. This type of porous silicon or tin composite with graphene coating can also potentially play a significant role in thermoelectrics and optoelectronics applications.

Metallic Sn‐Based Anode Materials: Application in High‐Performance Lithium‐Ion and Sodium‐Ion Batteries

“…People have varied the carbon precursors to produce the carbon matrix, including micromolecular organics,22, 26, 49, 50, 52, 56 polymer,6, 53, 57, 58, 59 saccharides,48, 51, 60, 61, 62 resins,55, 63, 64 graphene,65, 66, 67 etc. Derrien et al49 reported a synthesis of nano‐Sn (with a small amount of SnO 2 ) embedded in a carbon matrix.…”

Monodisperse CoSn2 and FeSn2 nanocrystals as high-performance anode materials for lithium-ion batteries

“…These difficulties can be mitigated through nanostructuring, in particular, when the active material is embedded into an elastic and conductive network. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] For example, the cycling performance of 10 nm Sn nanocrystals (NCs), syn-thesized through colloidal methods, was demonstrated to be better than that of 150-50 nm Sn NCs. 9 As an alternative to scaling the active material, alloying with other metals (such as M-Sn alloys) has also been demonstrated to be an effective strategy; where M is electroactive (Sb, 15,21 Ge, 22 Bi, 23 Mg 24 ) or inactive (Fe, 25,26 Co, 27, Ni, 55 Cu 56 ) with regard to Li.…”

Binder-free Sn–Si heterostructure films for high capacity Li-ion batteries

“…an investigation using Sn nanoparticles as an effective, conductive additive for Si-based anodes in Li-ion half-cells. [25][26][27] The rst study claimed that the presence of the Sn (as low as 2%) dramatically improves the electrode's performance in terms of both charge capacity and cycling stability. 26 It proposed to have achieved this by being uniformly dispersed in the Si network but also reducing the electrical resistance of the electrode structure as a whole.…”

“…[25][26][27] The rst study claimed that the presence of the Sn (as low as 2%) dramatically improves the electrode's performance in terms of both charge capacity and cycling stability. 26 It proposed to have achieved this by being uniformly dispersed in the Si network but also reducing the electrical resistance of the electrode structure as a whole. As such, Mangolini et al the synergistic effects between the materials lead to batteries that exceed the performance of each of the two components alone.…”

“…28 Combining hybridised "yin-yang" silicon-tin porous nanocomposites with graphene has also been used as an approach for generating lowcost and low energy consumption materials with promising electrochemical performance. 29 When considering silicon as the predominant anode active material, the one-dimensional aspect of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) has received widespread attention 30,31 but will not be discussed at length here. It reported to be structurally benecial as an anode active material as it: (1) allows sufficient space between collections of nanowires to accommodate the volume changes brought about by lithiation, and (2) allows axial/radial stress relaxation of the nanowires.…”