Facile Pyrolyzed N-Doped Binder Network for Stable Si Anodes

Although nanoengineering provides improved stability of Si-based nanostructures, a facile and efficacious method to directly use raw Si practices is still absent. Herein, we report a pyrolyzed N-doped binder network to improve the cycling stability of raw Si particles. Such an N-doped binder network is formed at a conformal pyrolysis condition of the electrode binder using polyacrylonitrile and provides a tight encapsulation of the Si particles with significantly improved cycling stability. In contrast to the single Si particles that pulverize and lose the total capacity at the 20th cycle, the discharge capacity could be retained ∼1700 mA h g–1 at the 100th cycle for the Si particles imbedded in the pyrolyzed N-doped binder network. Our results demonstrate that such a facile remedy could significantly improve the cycling stability of raw Si particles for high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries.