Recent advances in the development of silicon-based anodes
for lithium-ion batteries
Alikhan Karymsakov
Department of Chemistry, School of Science and Technology, Nazarbayev University,
Astana, Kazakhstan
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Silicon (Si) has been recognized worldwide as one of the most promising material candidates
for negative electrodes in lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Apart from its great natural abundance,
Si exhibits exceptionally high theoretical capacity of approximately 4200 mAh*g, which excels
the currently used graphite almost 14 times. However, the use of Si has not been achieved
practically due to its dramatic volumetric increase during Li-ion de-/intercalation, which results
in a very rapid capacity fade and a dangerous possibility of the battery crack. Therefore, much
research is being done as to how to utilize its excellent capacity without the mentioned
problems, and among the most researched solutions are the implementation of Si into a crystal
structure of metal alloys, the use of nanostructured Si and the chemical modification of Si into
SiO 2 . In this work, the most prominent results of these directions will be summarized and
discussed.