A facile in situ synthesis of nanocrystal-FeSiembedded Si/SiO x anode for long-cycle-life lithium ion batteries, Energy Storage Materials, http://dx.
AbstractA cost-effective, environmentally friendly and industrialized method of using low-grade sources to prepare high-performance anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) with high energy density and long cycle life is both appealing and challenging. Herein, we present a low-cost, scalable and controllable approach for preparing unique sub-micrometer core-shell structure nanocrystal-FeSi-embedded Si/SiO x (FSO) anode material directly from a low-grade Fe-Si alloy. The sub-micrometer FSO anode materials are controlled by in-situ reaction of the Fe-Si-O in the Fe-Si alloy according to the phase diagram. The XRD and Rietveld refinement results indicate that when the treatment temperature increase, (i) FeSi phase appears together with Si and FeSi 2 , and then (ii)Fe 3 Si phase appears together with Si and FeSi. Most importantly, benefited from the formation of the amorphous SiO x as buffer layer and self-conductive nanocrystal-FeSi as a robust skeleton to mechanically support the large volume change of Si during cycling, the sub-micrometer core-shell structure FSO anode exhibits a high capacity (931.3 mAh g -1 ) at 50 mA g -1 and a prolonged cycle performance with 86% capacity retention over 1000 cycles at 1 A g -1 . The full cell with prelithiated FSO as the anode and commercial LiCoO 2 as the cathode delivers a high energy density of 467.5 Wh kg -1 at the 0.05 C. This work provides a promising route for commercial production of high-performance Si/SiO x -based anode materials in LIBs.
Structure CharacterizationXRD measurements were performed with a Bruker D8 Advance powder diffractometer using CuKα sealed tube radiation (λ = 1.5418 Å) and Ni β-filter and equipped with LynxEye position sensitive detector. Rietveld refinement was conducted to determine the composition of the powders using Topas-5 software from Bruker. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out using a Perkin Elmer Diamond TG/DTA instrument at a heating rate of 10 o C min -1 under ambient conditions. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements were carried out on an Axis Ultra DLD imaging photoelectron spectrometer. The samples were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (FESEM and HR-SEM, Hitachi, S-4800) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM, FEI Ltd., Tecnai F20).