Systematic Investigation of the Alucone-Coating Enhancement on Silicon Anodes

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is the most popular binder in commercial lithium-ion batteries, but is incompatible with a silicon (Sdi) anode because the PVDF fails to maintain the mechanical integrity of the Si electrode upon cycling. Herein, an alucone coating synthesized by molecular-layer deposition has been applied on the laminated electrode fabricated with PVDF to systematically study the sole impact of the surface modification on the electrochemical and mechanical properties of the Si electrode, without the interference of other functional polymer binders. The enhanced mechanical properties of the coated electrodes, confirmed by mechanical characterization, can help accommodate the repeated volume fluctuations, preserve the electrode structure during electrochemical reactions, and thereby, leading to a remarkably improvement of electrochemical performance. Due to the alucone coating, the Si electrodes achieve highly reversible cycling performance with a specific capacity of 1,490 mAh g-1 (0.90 mAh ...