Formation and quantitative analysis of internal structure of Si nanoparticles developed via bead-milling

4Citations
Citations of this article
13Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Amorphous silicon nanomaterial is isotropic on the macroscale and can effectively inhibit the expansion/contraction during lithiation/delithiation processes, which remarkably improves the cycle performance of Li-ion batteries. Bead-milling is a simple, cost-effective, and scalable method for manufacturing amorphous and/or crystalline silicon nanoparticles. In this work, the internal structure of Si nanoparticles prepared by bead-milling was found to consist of amorphous and nanocrystalline silicon as well as amorphous silicon oxide. X-ray diffraction patterns and Raman spectra are used to calculate the average crystallite size and estimate the degree of crystallization and amorphization of silicon. The quantitative analysis of amorphous silicon oxide is carried out through x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy characterization and oxygen content measuring. It was found that the average particle size (D50) and the crystallite size were reduced to 91 and 3.7 nm, respectively, from 4.06 μm and 50.6 nm before bead-milling, and the degree of amorphization and oxygen content increased to 85.7% and 7.38%, respectively, from 37.5% and 0.12% before bead-milling. It is demonstrated that the longer the milling time, the smaller the sizes of particles and crystals and the higher the ratio of the amorphous phase. However, it inversely causes side-effects such as the increase in oxidization of Si nanoparticles and the increase in content of ZrO2 impurity.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Zhao, M., Zhang, J., Wang, W., & Zhang, Q. (2021). Formation and quantitative analysis of internal structure of Si nanoparticles developed via bead-milling. AIP Advances, 11(7). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0049790

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free