A silica/carbon composite as anode for lithium-ion batteries with a large rate capab ility: experimental and theoretical studies

E. LEIVA; G. LENER; M. OTERO; A. SIGAL; A. ALVAREZ; D. BARRACO

Bologna

Congreso; 69 Th Annual Meeting of the international Society of Electrochemistry; 2018

New generations of materials are necessary to provide practical and economical solutions for electrode fabrication in lithium ion batteries. To this end, in the present work we propose a negative electrode based on a SiO2/C interconnected composite able to charge/discharge at high current regimes while maintaining a very good capacity. In order to have a better understanding of the phenomena that occur in the charge/discharge process, we combined experimental techniques (XPS, DRX, EIS, etc.) with theoretical calculations based on DFT to obtain the thermodynamics of the formation of the reaction products as a function of the cell potential. These results were combined with our experiments and results from the literature to demonstrate the different reactions that could occur. In this way, an easy-to-fabricate anode is presented, which can be charged/discharged in a few minutes. The present material provides a superior performance compared with analogous materials from the literature and may thus be an important tool for obtaining practical solutions in both stationary and mobile electrical devices.