Porous silicon oxide (sio) anode enabled by a conductive polymer binder and performance enhancement by stabilized lithium metal power (slmp)

Abstract

The invention demonstrates that only 2% functional conductive polymer binder without any conductive additives was successfully used with a micron-size silicon monoxide (SiO) anode material, demonstrating stable and high gravimetric capacity (>1000 mAh/g) for ˜500 cycles and more than 90% capacity retention. Prelithiation of this anode using stabilized lithium metal powder (SLMP®) improves the first cycle Coulombic efficiency of a SiO/NMC full cell from ˜48% to ˜90%. This combination enables good capacity retention of more than 80% after 100 cycles at C/3 in a lithium-ion full cell. We also demonstrate the important connection between porosity and the loading of silicon electrodes. By employing a highly porous silicon electrode, a high areal capacity (3.3 mAh/cm) is obtained. This method works well to achieve high loading of other high-capacity alloy anodes, the state-of-art graphite anode, as well as a high loading of positive electrodes for LIBs.