Remarkably improved cycling stability of commercial micron-sized silicon enabled by a novel organic/inorganic hybrid binder

Silicon (Si) anode with ultra-high capacity and low cost are highly desirable for next-generation high-energy lithium-ion batteries, whereas suffers from severe volume change that causes rapid capacity decay upon lithiation/delithiation. The development of high-performance binders to alleviate volumetric expansion and maintain integrity of Si particles remains a significant challenge. Here, reported is a novel organic/inorganic hybrid binder composed of partial neutralized polyacrylic acid (PAAS) and sodium metaborate tetrahydrate (SMTH), which achieves in-situ crosslinking upon drying wafer electrodes. The robust crosslinked network structure with borate ester bonds is successfully attained, and can be modulated by changing the content of sodium metaborate. The strong covalent bond network endows the hybrid binder system with superior mechanical properties and powerful adhesion, which improve the contact and integrity of wafer silicon electrode by suppressing volume expansion and exfoliation, therefore facilitating Li-ion migration and enhancing electrochemical performance. The resulting commercial micro-silicon wafer electrode with PAAS/0.08SMTH binder remains a reversible specific capacity of 1670 mAh g−1 after 150 cycles at 300 mA g−1, largely superior to that prepared with the original PAAS binder because its reversible specific capacity was determined to be only 1046 mAh g−1 under identical conditions. The in-situ crosslinked 3D network structure provides a facile feasible way to improve the high-capacity anode materials for lithium-ion batteries.