Improving electrochemical performance of silicon anode through building “soft-hard” double-layer coating

Silicon is believed to be a critical anode material for approaching the roadmap of lithium-ion batteries due to its high specific capacity. But this aim has been hindered by the quick capacity fading of its electrodes during repeated charge–discharge cycles. In this work, a “soft-hard” double-layer coating has been proposed and carried out on ball-milled silicon particles. It is composed of inside conductive pathway and outside elastic coating, which is achieved by decomposing a conductive graphite layer on the silicon surface and further coating it with a polymer layer. The incorporation of the second elastic coating on the inside carbon coating enables silicon particles strongly interacted with binders, thereby making the electrodes displaying an obviously improved cycling stability. As-obtained double-coated silicon anodes deliver a reversible capacity of 2280 mAh g−1 at the voltage of 0.05–2 V, and maintains over 1763 mAh g−1 after 50 cycles. The double-layer coating does not crack after the repeated cycling, critical for the robust performance of the electrodes. In addition, as-obtained silicon particles are mixed with commercial graphite to make actual anodes for lithium-ion batteries. A capacity of 714 mAh g−1 has been achieved based on the total mass of the electrodes containing 10 wt.% double-coated silicon particles. Compared with traditional carbon coating or polymeric coating, the double-coating electrodes display a much better performance. Therefore, the double-coating strategy can give inspiration for better design and synthesis of silicon anodes, as well as other battery materials.