title: Scalable Production of Si Nanoparticles Directly from Low Grade Sources for Lithium-Ion Battery Anode.
abstract: Silicon, one of the most promising candidates as lithium-ion battery anode, has attracted much attention due to its high theoretical capacity, abundant existence, and mature infrastructure. Recently, Si nanostructures-based lithium-ion battery anode, with sophisticated structure designs and process development, has made significant progress. However, low cost and scalable processes to produce these Si nanostructures remained as a challenge, which limits the widespread applications. Herein, we demonstrate that Si nanoparticles with controlled size can be massively produced directly from low grade Si sources through a scalable high energy mechanical milling process. In addition, we systematically studied Si nanoparticles produced from two major low grade Si sources, metallurgical silicon (∼99 wt % Si, $1/kg) and ferrosilicon (∼83 wt % Si, $0.6/kg). It is found that nanoparticles produced from ferrosilicon sources contain FeSi2, which can serve as a buffer layer to alleviate the mechanical fractures of volume expansion, whereas nanoparticles from metallurgical Si sources have higher capacity and better kinetic properties because of higher purity and better electronic transport properties. Ferrosilicon nanoparticles and metallurgical Si nanoparticles demonstrate over 100 stable deep cycling after carbon coating with the reversible capacities of 1360 mAh g(-1) and 1205 mAh g(-1), respectively. Therefore, our approach provides a new strategy for cost-effective, energy-efficient, large scale synthesis of functional Si electrode materials.
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yingling
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Linqi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zong
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University , Suzhou 215123, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: School of Physics, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yanbin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University , Suzhou 215123, China.
authors.forename: Qiao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: Si nanoparticles; anode; ferrosilicon; lithium-ion battery; low grade; metallurgical Si