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Facile preparation of the silicon/carbon composite anodes from photovoltaic industry waste for lithium-ion batteries

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Abstract

Silicon is identified as the most prospective anodes candidate material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, its commercialization is restricted by the large volume variation and high-cost. In this study, the silicon powders from the kerf slurry wastes are used as raw materials for the preparation of silicon/carbon anodes. An effective pretreatment process that combines the sand milling and a chemical cleaning method is utilized to prepare the purified silicon powders. Then, a facile one-step hydrothermal method is used to prepare the purified silicon/carbon composites. The results demonstrate that the chemical purification can effectively remove the organic contaminants and metal impurities on the surface of raw silicon powders. It also renders hydrophilic surfaces for the silicon powders, which improves the bonding of carbon layer and results in the improvement of the electrical performance correspondingly. The as-prepared purified silicon/carbon anode shows a high specific discharge capacity of 2099 mAh g−1 in the first cycle at the current density of 0.2 A g−1. The capacity still maintains a value of 1010 mAh g−1 after 148 cycles at the current density of 0.5 A g−1. This work not only provides a reasonable and facile solution for recycling silicon wastes from the kerf slurry but also provides a strategy for the preparation of advanced anodes for high-performance lithium-ion batteries.

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Data Availability

The authors will supply the relevant data in response to reasonable requests.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by Changzhou Shichuang Energy Co. Ltd. and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 50902116).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, People’s Republic of China

    Tiancheng Shen, Zhiwen Yang, Yuanzhi Chen, Jie Mei & Jin Xu

  2. Xiamen Key Laboratory of Electronic Ceramic Materials and Devices, College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, People’s Republic of China

    Jin Xu

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  1. Tiancheng Shen
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Contributions

Tiancheng Shen: Investigation, drawing and writing - original draft preparation. Zhiwen Yang: Data analysis. Yuanzhi Chen: Writing - review and editing, supervision. Jie Mei: Investigation. Jin Xu: Conceptualization, project administration, supervision.

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Correspondence to Yuanzhi Chen or Jin Xu.

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Shen, T., Yang, Z., Chen, Y. et al. Facile preparation of the silicon/carbon composite anodes from photovoltaic industry waste for lithium-ion batteries. J Solid State Electrochem 27, 2407–2417 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-023-05487-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-023-05487-w

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