Scalable preparation of porous silicon nanoparticles and their application for lithium-ion battery anodes

Nanostructured silicon has generated significant excitement for use as the anode material for lithium-ion batteries; however, more effort is needed to produce nanostructured silicon in a scalable fashion and with good performance. Here, we present a direct preparation of porous silicon nanoparticles as a new kind of nanostructured silicon using a novel two-step approach combining controlled boron doping and facile electroless etching. The porous silicon nanoparticles have been successfully used as high performance lithium-ion battery anodes, with capacities around 1, 400 mA·h/g achieved at a current rate of 1 A/g, and 1, 000 mA·h/g achieved at 2 A/g, and stable operation when combined with reduced graphene oxide and tested over up to 200 cycles. We attribute the overall good performance to the combination of porous silicon that can accommodate large volume change during cycling and provide large surface area accessible to electrolyte, and reduced graphene oxide that can serve as an elastic and electrically conductive matrix for the porous silicon nanoparticles.