Silicene Flowers: A Dual Stabilized Silicon Building Block for High-Performance Lithium Battery Anodes

Nanostructuring is a transformative way to improve the structure stability of high capacity silicon for lithium batteries. Yet, the interface instability issue remains and even propagates in the existing nanostructured silicon building blocks. Here we demonstrate an intrinsically dual stabilized silicon building block, namely silicene flowers, to simultaneously address the structure and interface stability issues. These original Si building blocks as lithium battery anodes exhibit extraordinary combined performance including high gravimetric capacity (2000 mAh g-1 at 800 mA g-1), high volumetric capacity (1799 mAh cm-3), remarkable rate capability (950 mAh g-1 at 8 A g-1), and excellent cycling stability (1100 mA h g-1 at 2000 mA g-1 over 600 cycles). Paired with a conventional cathode, the fabricated full cells deliver extraordinarily high specific energy and energy density (543 Wh kgca-1 and 1257 Wh Lca-1, respectively) based on the cathode and anode, which are 152% and 239% of their commercial counterparts using graphite anodes. Coupled with a simple, cost-effective, scalable synthesis approach, this silicon building block offers a horizon for the development of high-performance batteries.