Authors: Hanne Flåten Andersen
Title: Degradation Phenomena in Silicon-Carbon Composite Anodes from Industrial Battery Grade Silicon
Affiliation: Institute for Energy Technology, IFE
Abstract
Silicon as anode material has now grown to a mature field, and many degradation phenomena has been explored in detail. For current Li-ion batteries, improvement of the anode capacity beyond approximately 1200 mAh/g has negligible impact on the overall cell capacity. Thus, composite anodes containing both silicon and a conventional anode material such as graphite, are sufficient for most batteries. While degradation mechanisms of pure nano-silicon structures have been studied in detail, similar phenomena specific to composite silicon-carbon electrodes have not. In our work we have focused on understanding how different degradation phenomena evolve during cycling using post-mortem FIB-SEM and TEM studies examining the effect and interplay between the graphite and the silicon in composite anodes. This work presents results observed in silicon-carbon composites with 60 wt.% silicon prepared for degradation studies.