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Nano Research 2017, 10(12): 4274-4283 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1584-5
Research Article | Issue | Published: 24 June 2017

Walnut-inspired microsized porous silicon/graphene core–shell composites for high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes

Show Author's Information Wei Zhai,  Qing Ai,  Lina Chen,  Shiyuan Wei,  Deping Li,  Lin Zhang,  Pengchao Si,  Jinkui Feng( ),  Lijie Ci( )
SDU & Rice Joint Center for Carbon NanomaterialsKey Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution & Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education)School of Materials Science and EngineeringShandong UniversityJinan250061China
Keywords:
graphene, silicon, lithium-ion batteries, in situ reduction
Cite this article:
Zhai W, Ai Q, Chen L, et al. Walnut-inspired microsized porous silicon/graphene core–shell composites for high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes. Nano Research, 2017, 10(12): 4274-4283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1584-5
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Silicon is considered an exceptionally promising alternative to the most commonly used material, graphite, as an anode for next-generation lithium-ion batteries, as it has high energy density owing to its high theoretical capacity and abundant storage. Here, microsized walnut-like porous silicon/reduced graphene oxide (P-Si/rGO) core–shell composites are successfully prepared via in situ reduction followed by a dealloying process. The composites show specific capacities of more than 2, 100 mAh·g-1 at a current density of 1, 000 mA·g-1, 1, 600 mAh·g-1 at 2, 000 mA·g-1, 1, 500 mAh·g-1 at 3, 000 mA·g-1, 1, 200 mAh·g-1 at 4, 000 mA·g-1, and 950 mAh·g-1 at 5, 000 mA·g-1, and maintain a value of 1, 258 mAh·g-1 after 300 cycles at a current density of 1, 000 mA·g-1. Their excellent rate performance and cycling stability can be attributed to the unique structural design: 1) The graphene shell dramatically improves the conductivity and stabilizes the solid– electrolyte interface layers; 2) the inner porous structure supplies sufficient space for silicon expansion; 3) the nanostructure of silicon can prevent the pulverization resulting from volume expansion stress. Notably, this in situ reduction method can be applied as a universal formula to coat graphene on almost all types of metals and alloys of various sizes, shapes, and compositions without adding any reagents to afford energy storage materials, graphene-based catalytic materials, graphene-enhanced composites, etc.


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About this article

Walnut-inspired microsized porous silicon/graphene core–shell composites for high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes

Show Author's information Wei Zhai, Qing Ai, Lina Chen, Shiyuan Wei, Deping Li, Lin Zhang, Pengchao Si, Jinkui Feng( ), Lijie Ci( )
SDU & Rice Joint Center for Carbon NanomaterialsKey Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution & Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education)School of Materials Science and EngineeringShandong UniversityJinan250061China

Abstract

Silicon is considered an exceptionally promising alternative to the most commonly used material, graphite, as an anode for next-generation lithium-ion batteries, as it has high energy density owing to its high theoretical capacity and abundant storage. Here, microsized walnut-like porous silicon/reduced graphene oxide (P-Si/rGO) core–shell composites are successfully prepared via in situ reduction followed by a dealloying process. The composites show specific capacities of more than 2, 100 mAh·g-1 at a current density of 1, 000 mA·g-1, 1, 600 mAh·g-1 at 2, 000 mA·g-1, 1, 500 mAh·g-1 at 3, 000 mA·g-1, 1, 200 mAh·g-1 at 4, 000 mA·g-1, and 950 mAh·g-1 at 5, 000 mA·g-1, and maintain a value of 1, 258 mAh·g-1 after 300 cycles at a current density of 1, 000 mA·g-1. Their excellent rate performance and cycling stability can be attributed to the unique structural design: 1) The graphene shell dramatically improves the conductivity and stabilizes the solid– electrolyte interface layers; 2) the inner porous structure supplies sufficient space for silicon expansion; 3) the nanostructure of silicon can prevent the pulverization resulting from volume expansion stress. Notably, this in situ reduction method can be applied as a universal formula to coat graphene on almost all types of metals and alloys of various sizes, shapes, and compositions without adding any reagents to afford energy storage materials, graphene-based catalytic materials, graphene-enhanced composites, etc.

Keywords: graphene, silicon, lithium-ion batteries, in situ reduction

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 14 December 2016
Revised: 07 March 2017
Accepted: 12 March 2017
Published: 24 June 2017
Issue date: December 2017

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer‐Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the 1000 Talent Plan program (No. 31270086963030), Key Research Plan of Shandong Province (No. 2015GGE27286), Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University, and the Young Scholars Program of Shandong University (No. 2016WLJH03).

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