Recycling Silicon Waste from the Photovoltaic Industry to Prepare Yolk–Shell Si@void@C Anode Materials for Lithium–Ion Batteries

Abstract

Silicon is considered to have significant potential for anode materials in lithium–ion batteries (LIBs) with a theoretical specific capacity of 4200 mAh g−1. However, the development of commercial applications is impacted by the volume shift that happens in silicon when charging and discharging. In this paper, a yolk–shell–structured Si@void@C anode material has been developed to address this problem. The silicon nanoparticle yolk material is obtained by recycling kerf loss (KL) Si waste from the process of slicing silicon block casts into wafers in the photovoltaic industry; the carbon shell is prepared by a hydrothermal method with glucose, and the sacrificial interlayer is Al2O3. The produced material is employed in the production of anodes, exhibiting a reversible capacity of 836 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 after 100 cycles, accompanied by a Coulomb efficiency of 71.4%. This study demonstrates an economical way of transforming KL Si waste into materials with an enhanced value for LIBs.