A vast amount of research has been devoted to replacing the graphite anode with new materials that form alloys with Li and give far greater specific capacities than graphite. These anode materials, however, suffer from serious volumetric expansion and contraction during charge/discharge cycling, which tends to cause rapid capacity fading. Introducing pre-set voids within either the active material particles or the electrode layer to accommodate the cyclic volumetric variations has been a common practice for enhancing cycle stability of the Li-alloying anodes. The presence of the porosity leads to reduction of electrode capacity (energy) density, an issue that has often been overlooked. The inter-relation between the pre-set porosity and electrode materials will be discussed to elucidate the microstructure design from the viewpoint of capacity (energy) density. A few examples for synthesizing Sn and Si-based anode particles with various microstructures will be presented, along with their electrochemical cycling behaviors.

Synthesis and characterization of Li-alloying anode materials with porous microstructures

244th National Meeting (2012)

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