Si/C particles on graphene sheet as stable anode for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract Silicon is considered as one of the most promising anodes for Li-ion batteries (LIBs), but it is limited for commercial applications by the critical issue of large volume expansion during the lithiation. In this work, the structure of silicon/carbon (Si/C) particles on graphene sheets (Si/C–G) was obtained to solve the issue by using the void space of Si/C particles and graphene. Si/C–G material was from Si/PDA-GO that silicon particles was coated by polydopamine (PDA) and reacted with oxide graphene (GO). The Si/C–G material have good cycling performance as the stability of the structure during the lithiation/dislithiation. The Si/C–G anode materials exhibited high reversible capacity of 1910.5 mA h g−1 and 1196.1 mA h g−1 after 700 cycles at 357.9 mA g−1, and have good rate property of 507.2 mA h g−1 at high current density, showing significantly improved commercial viability of silicon electrodes in high-energy-density LIBs.