Canada found that silicon nanoparticles can increase the storage capacity of lithium batteries by 10 times
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Author : TRUNNANO
Update time : 2020-11-19 08:48:03
Silicon material has abundant reserves. When Si and Li form a Li4.4Si structure, the theoretical specific capacity can reach 4200mAh/g, which is almost ten times higher than the lithium-ion absorbed by the currently widely used lithium battery, so it is considered It has the prospect of manufacturing large-capacity batteries. At present, the application of silicon materials in lithium-ion batteries mainly involves two aspects. One is to add nano silicon to the anode material to form a silicon-carbon anode. The other is to add organosilicon compounds to the electrolyte to improve the performance of the electrolyte.
The University of Alberta creates a new generation of silicon-based lithium batteries
Recently, the team of Jillian Buriak, a chemist at the University of Alberta in Canada, discovered that molding silicon into nano-sized particles helps prevent it from breaking. Nano-silicon refers to crystalline silicon particles with a diameter of fewer than 5 nanometers. It is an important non-metal amorphous material. Nano silicon powder has the characteristics of high purity, small particle size, uniform distribution, large specific surface area, high surface activity, low bulk density, etc., and is non-toxic and odorless. Nano-silicon has a wide range of applications: In addition to being used to make high-temperature coatings and refractory materials, it can be mixed with a diamond under high pressure to form silicon carbide-diamond composite materials, which can be used as cutting tools and can also be combined with graphite materials to form silicon-carbon composite materials. The negative electrode material of lithium-ion batteries greatly increases the capacity of lithium-ion batteries; it can react with organic matter as the raw material of organic silicon polymer material.
The team researched and tested four different sizes of silicon nanoparticles to determine what size can maximize the advantages of silicon while minimizing its shortcomings. They are evenly distributed in a highly conductive graphene aerogel made of carbon with nanopores to compensate for the low conductivity of silicon.
They found that the smallest particles (only one part of a meter in diameter) showed the best long-term stability after multiple charges and discharge cycles. This overcomes the limitation of using silicon in lithium-ion batteries. This discovery may result in a new generation of batteries with 10 times the capacity of current lithium-ion batteries, a critical step towards the manufacture of a new generation of silicon-based lithium-ion batteries. The research results were published in the journal "Materials Chemistry".
The significance of the lithium battery industry chain layout of the tens of billions of silicon anode market
This research has broad application prospects, especially in the field of electric vehicles, which can make it travel longer, charge faster, and lighter batteries. The next step is to develop a faster and cheaper method to make silicon nanoparticles, making them easier to use in industrial production.
In addition to the field of new energy vehicles, lithium-ion batteries with higher energy density and power density are required in the fields of energy storage, aerospace, ships and ships. The use of high nickel ternary materials for the positive electrode has become the mainstream choice, while silicon and its Composite materials are also the most promising negative electrode material at present, and it may not be long before lithium batteries using silicon as the negative electrode material will provide longer battery life in new energy vehicles.
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