Drop-casting preparation of a binder-free SiOx anode with micron-sized SiOx particles for high-performance lithium-ion batteries

Sub-valent silicon oxide (SiOx) is a promising next-generation anode material in lithium-ion batteries. However, SiOx still suffers large volume expansion during the lithiation, resulting in deteriorated battery performance. Herein, we report a low-cost and easy-to-scale-up method to prepare a SiOx-based anode (named as SiOx@G-Ni) by drop-casting the slurry of asphalt, micron-sized SiOx powder, nickel salt and carbon nanotubes onto a Cu foil and subsequent thermal pyrolysis. The obtained electrode consists of a rigid graphenic carbon network that is embedded with micron-sized SiOx, nickel nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes. The SiOx@G-Ni electrode delivers a specific charge capacity of 1061 mA h g -1 at 0.08 A g-1, and a capacity retention rate of 86.7 % after cycled 500 times at 1.6 A g-1. The full battery SiOx@G-Ni||LiCoO2 reaches a capacity retention rate of 79.3 % after 250 cycles at 0.5 C. The method employed in this work could be used for the preparation of the SiOx-based anode for high-performance lithium-ion batteries. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.