Commercial SiO Encapsulated in Hybrid Bilayer Conductive Skeleton as Stable Anode Coupling Chemical Prelithiation for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Although Silicon monoxide (SiO) is regarded as the most promising next-generation anode material, the large volume expansion, poor conductivity, and low initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) severely hamper its commercialization application. Designing a multilayer conductive skeleton combined with advanced prelithiation technology is considered an effective approach to address these problems. Herein, a reliable strategy is proposed that utilizes MXene and carbon nanotube (CNT) as dual-conductive skeletons to encapsulate SiO through simple electrostatic interaction for high-performance anodes in LIBs, while also performing chemical prelithiation. Various characterizations and electrochemical measurements indicate that both MXene and CNT, as conductive networks and buffer interfaces, synergistically enhance the electron transport and lithium storage properties of the electrode. Moreover, the chemical prelithiation process effectively improves the ICE and cycling stability. Consequently, the prepared SiO@MXene@CNT anode delivers a high capacity of 1032 mAh g^-1 after 200 cycles at 200 mA g^-1 and an ultrahigh capacity retention rate of 89.5% beyond 1000 cycles at 1000 mA g^-1. More importantly, the ICE of the SiO@MXene@CNT anode increases from 65.1% to 92.3% after chemical prelithiation. The work opens a new avenue for significantly improving the lithium storage performance of SiO-based anodes and is expected to promote their commercialization progress.