Photo cured 3D porous silica-carbon (SiO2–C) membrane as anode material for high performance rechargeable Li-ion batteries

Silicon based anode materials has got significant attention in recent years due to its environmental affinity, lower cost and high capacity in lithium ion batteries . The Photo cured 3D porous Silica-carbon membrane (SiO 2 –C material) was synthesized via binary phase solid state photo-polymerization, freeze dried to obtain porous membrane and then used as template to get silica deposited membrane by chemical vapor deposition method (CVD) at 30  ° C, followed by calcination . The silicon deposition has been confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The Barret-Joyner-Halenda (BJH) pore size distribution results showed the pore size of 10.2924 nm and surface area of 21.1957 m 2 /g with cumulative pore volume of 0.040248 cm³/g. The first discharge capacity reached to 719 mAhg −1 with 79.94% columbic efficiency regarding first cycle and discharge capacity for 100 cycles reached to 693 mAhg −1 with 99% columbic efficiency, which indicated high reaction reversibility. The silicon deposition with a porous structure improved the electronic conductivity and stabilized the material. The better electrochemical performance observed could be due to porous structure and carbon matrix of SiO 2 –C material.