Anatase TiO2 as a Cheap and Sustainable Buffering Filler for Silicon Nanoparticles in Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes.

The design of effective supporting matrices to efficiently cycle Si nanoparticles is often difficult to achieve and requires complex preparation strategies. In this work, we present a simple synthesis of low-cost and environmentally benign aAnatase TiO2 nanoparticles as buffering filler for Si nanoparticles (Si@TiO2 ). The average anatase TiO2 crystallite size was approximately 5 nm. A complete structural, morphological, and electrochemical characterization was performed. Electrochemical test results show very good specific capacity values of up to 1000 mAh g-1 and cycling at several specific currents, ranging from 500 to 2000 mA g-1 , demonstrating a very good tolerance to high cycling rates. Postmortem morphological analysis shows very good electrode integrity after 100 cycles at 500 mA g-1 specific current.