Sea Sand-Derived Magnesium Silicide as a Reactive Precursor for Silicon-Based Composite Electrodes of Lithium-Ion Battery

Abstract

Recently, it has been clearly elucidated that nanostructured Si-based composites hybridized with protective and conductive materials can present enhanced electrochemical performance as anodes for Liion batteries (LIBs). One of remaining issues is to develop a sustainable and economic method to synthesize these composites on a large scale for industrial applications. Herein, we introduce a modified magnesiothermic reaction route to prepare the aforementioned Si-based composite electrodes using seasand derived Mg2Si as a reactive precursor. Owing to its reducibility and lability, Mg2Si can readily reduce group IVA oxides, such as Na2CO3, SiO2, GeO2, and SnO2, resulting in macroporous Si surrounded by the reduced forms of the counter reactants (C, Si, Ge, and Sn, respectively), some of which can be electrochemically attractive. Notably, the porous Si-based composite can be synthesized by a simple solid state reaction, so simplicity and scalability can be obtained. Also, the sea sand precursor is naturally-abundant; hence this process can be cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable. Porous Si@C composite can be synthesized from the modified magnesiothermic reaction using a sea sand-derived Mg2Si precursor, showing a specific capacity of 1000 mAh/g at 200th cycle. Potentially this process can be used for practical synthesis of Si-based composites. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.