Development of nanostructured anodes for all solid state lithium ion batteries

Abstract

A high performance rechargeable lithium ion battery with long cycle life and human newlinesafety is greatly required with the rapid development of information devices such as portable video camera and cell phones. Rechargeable lithium ion battery is the most energy dense and lightest of all the competing battery types. The energy density of a battery mainly depends on the electronic structure of the negative and positive electrode materials. Carbon based materials are currently used as anode materials due to their stable charge-discharge plateaus newlineand excellent cyclability. However, their theoretical capacity limits to 372 mAhg-1, newlinecorresponding to the formation of LiC6, curtails the ceiling of utility. In order to enhance the energy density of lithium-ion secondary batteries, various new anode materials have been proposed. Hence, many reports are seen on the suitable alternative anode materials like SnCu, SnNi, Si3Ni4 and SnAl etc. Alloy based anode materials like SnSb and Si-SnSb are considered as the best anodes for rechargeable lithium ion batteries as an alternate for the presently employed anodes, since they possess high energy density and high lithium storage capacity. On the other hand, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have also been extensively investigated newlineas a nanoscale framework material for much potential applications because of their structure, physical and chemical properties, extraordinary thermal stability and high electronic conductivity. Therefore, this thesis contributes to this goal by developing new anode materials and novel synthesis techniques for the application in advanced rechargeable lithium batteries. The synthesized compounds are analyzed using various techniques and presented as seven chapters. The brief outlines of the work presented in different chapters are given below....