Reduced Graphene Oxide Wrapped Ultra-thin Silicon Nanowires for Lithium Ion Battery Anodes

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays, silicon is becoming a promising kind of material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) because of its high theoretical capacities. In this paper, we developed a new Bi-metal assisted chemical etching (BACE) method to fabricate ultrathin silicon nanowires (UTSiNWs) with an average diameter of 30 nm, and fabricate reduced graphene oxide wrapped UTSiNWs (UTSiNWs@rGO). The UTSiNWs and UTSiNWs@rGO anode have a discharge capacity of 1011.6 mAh/g and 2013.1 mAh/g under the current density of 300 mA/g. Retention rate of the UTSiNWs and UTSiNWs@rGO anode are 93.3% and 76.6% respectively. Although the discharge capacity decreased due to the side reactions caused by the increased interface, the discharge capacity of UTSiNWs@rGO anode is still higher that of UTSiNWs anode because of the electron conductivity of the anode is improved.