posted on 2023-06-09, 18:09authored byChuanfang (John) Zhang, Sang-Hoon Park, Andrés Seral-Ascaso, Sebastian Barwich, Niall McEvoy, Conor Boland, Jonathan N Coleman, Yury Gogotsi, Valeria Nicolosi
The ever-increasing demands for advanced lithium-ion batteries have greatly stimulated the quest for robust electrodes with a high areal capacity. Producing thick electrodes from a high-performance active material would maximize this parameter. However, above a critical thickness, solution-processed films typically encounter electrical/mechanical problems, limiting the achievable areal capacity and rate performance as a result. Herein, we show that two-dimensional titanium carbide or carbonitride nanosheets, known as MXenes, can be used as a conductive binder for silicon electrodes produced by a simple and scalable slurry-casting technique without the need of any other additives. The nanosheets form a continuous metallic network, enable fast charge transport and provide good mechanical reinforcement for the thick electrode (up to 450?µm). Consequently, very high areal capacity anodes (up to 23.3?mAh cm-2) have been demonstrated.