Utilization of pelagic clay to prepare porous silicon as negative electrode for lithium-ion batteries

In order to rationally develop abundant marine clay resources, in view of its large specific surface area, looseness, high porosity, poor crystallinity, and high activity, the magnesium thermal reduction method was used to reduce Si 4+ in the pelagic clay minerals to obtain porous silicon. Through targeted process design and reaction condition control, the obtained silicon material not only has higher crystallinity, but also has layered accumulation pores with relatively uniform pore size distribution. It had a BET specific surface area of 81.473 m 2 ·g −1 , a pore volume of 0.290 cm 3 ·g −1 , and an average pore size of 10.193 nm. In addition, using sucrose as the carbon source, the prepared silicon was modified to obtain a carbon-coated porous silicon material, whose performance as lithium-ion battery negative electrode was preliminarily characterized. The specific capacity, cycling performance and multiplicity performance test results showed that the porous silicon derived from pelagic clay exhibits good cycling and rate performance under the carbon coating conditions, which means that it had a certain potential in the field of lithium-ion batteries. This work opened up a new way for high value-added utilization of pelagic clay. Using pelagic clay as raw material, porous silicon materials that can be used in the anode of lithium-ion batteries were prepared by magnesium thermal reduction method. The obtained porous silicon exhibited good electrochemical properties after a simple carbon coated. • PC-Si for lithium-ion battery anode applications is prepared by combining PC with MR. • The PC-Si is a three-dimensional layered and porous structure • This work opened up a new way for high value-added utilization of pelagic clay.