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Strain Regulating and Kinetics Accelerating of Micro-Sized Silicon Anodes via Dual-Size Hollow Graphitic Carbons
Qitao Shi1,2, Yuanhao Cheng1,2, Jiaqi Wang1,2
1Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials InnovationS, College of Energy, Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Key Laboratory of Core Technology of High Specific Energy Battery and Key Materials for Petroleum and Chemical Industry, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, Suzhou, 215006, China.
Abstract:
Micro-sized silicon (µSi) anode features fewer interfacial side reactions and lower costs compared to nanosized silicon, and has higher commercial value when applied as a lithium-ion battery (LIB) anode. However, the high localized stress generated during (de)lithiation causes electrode breakdown and performance deterioration of the µSi anode. In this work, hollow graphitic carbons with tailored dual sizes are employed as conductive additives for the µSi anode to overcome electrode failure. The dual-size hollow graphitic carbons (HGC) additives consist of particles with micrometer size similar to the µSi particles; these additives are used for strain regulation. Additionally, nanometer-size particles similar to commercial carbon black Spheron (SP) are used mainly for kinetics acceleration. In addition to building an efficient conductive network, the dual-size hollow graphitic carbon conductive additive prevents the fracture of the electrode by reducing local stress and alleviating volume expansion. The µSi anode with dual-size hollow graphitic carbons as conductive additives achieves an impressive capacity of 651.4 mAh g-1 after 500 cycles at a high current density of 2 A g-1 . These findings suggest that dual-size hollow graphitic carbons are expected to be superior conductive additives for micro-sized alloy anodes similar to µSi.

