Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LIB-Si anode (Silicon/Carbon Nano-Hybrid Lithium-Ion Battery Anode: Green Facile Scalable Synthesis Inspired by Thermosetting Polymers)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2015-09-14 do 2017-09-13
Lithium-ion battery is one of the most important energy storage media widely used currently. However, it suffers from serious drawbacks of the graphite based anode including inferior energy capacity and serious safety concern. It is both scientifically and practically important to develop new generation of lithium-ion battery anode with high capacity, energy density, reasonable cost, and good operation safety.Compared to graphite, silicon holds great potential to be the new generation of lithium-ion battery anode. Developing cutting edge technology for high performance silicon based lithium-ion battery anode and understanding the fundamentally scientific principle will significantly advance the practical application of the lithium-ion battery.
The overall objectives of the project are to develop facile scalable synthetic strategies to improve the cyclic and/or rate performance of the silicon based lithium-ion battery anode, acquire knowledge and mechanism about the structure control, structure-property correlation of the silicon anode. With the knowledge obtained from this project, it would be beneficial and inspiring for developing high performance silicon anode within this area.
The results of the project so far can be summarized briefly as following: 1. Establishing synthetic methods for silicon/carbon composite based on thermosetting polymer and nanostructured silicon anode with significantly improved rate or cyclic performance. 2. Identifying possible role and working mechanism of the high performance water based binder for silicon based lithium-ion battery anode with good cyclic performance. 3. Performing comprehensive literature review on the history of the research on the silicon based lithium-ion battery anode over last thirty years for the first time and writing a review article. Three peer-reviewed papers have been published (Nano Energy 2017, ACS Nano 2017, and ACS Nano 2018). The results about the binder will possibly overturn the common knowledge well accepted by the lithium-ion battery community, which is fundamentally novel. Further studies are being continued. The outcome on the nanostructured silicon and silicon/carbon composite studies will provide facile scalable and practically relevant ways to synthesize silicon based anode with improved electrochemical performance.