Six Thousand Electrochemical Cycles of Double-Walled Silicon Nanotube Anodes for Lithium Ion Batteries

Despite remarkable progress, lithium ion batteries still need higher energy density and better cycle life for consumer electronics, electric drive vehicles and large-scale renewable energy storage applications. Silicon has recently been explored as a promising anode material for high energy batteries; however, attaining long cycle life remains a significant challenge due to materials pulverization during cycling and an unstable solid-electrolyte interphase. Here, we report double-walled silicon nanotube electrodes that can cycle over 6000 times while retaining more than 85% of the initial capacity. This excellent performance is due to the unique double-walled structure in which the outer silicon oxide wall confines the inner silicon wall to expand only inward during lithiation, resulting in a stable solid-electrolyte interphase. This structural concept is general and could be extended to other battery materials that undergo large volume changes.