Researchers at La Sapienza in Rome are proposing silicon-based anodes, composed of micrometric Si, graphite (MAG), LiI-Li₃PS₄ solid electrolyte (LPSI), and carbon nanofiber (CNF), which can be prepared by straightforward manual grinding. A paper on their work is published in ChemSusChem.

The mixture design approach allows the discrimination of the effect of each component and also the combined effect of the components on the end-performance.

By increasing the fraction of LSPI in the anode, the capacity of the electrode is improved, and the best performance is obtained when the ratio of Si:MAG:LPSI is 15:15:70. This composite integrated with 5 wt% CNF exhibits the capacity above 1200 mAh g^-1 throughout 50 cycles in bulk-type all-solid-state battery with LPSI as the electrolyte.

From scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis, it is confirmed that the presence of LPSI suppresses the aggregation of Si and improves the ratio of Si available for lithiation/delithiation.

—Branchi et al.

Resources

• Branchi, M., Maresca, G., Tsurumaki, A., Suzuki, N., Croce, F., Panero, S., Voje, J., Aihara, Y. and Navarra, M.A. (2022), “Silicon-based composite anodes for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries conceived by a mixture design approach”. ChemSusChem doi: 10.1002/cssc.202202235