Aluminum particles as anode material for lithium ion batteries: effect of particle sizes on the electrochemical behaviours

Abstract

This study presents a preliminary investigation on using pristine aluminum particles as anodes for lithium-ion battery. The microstructural characteristics of aluminum particle samples with sizes from 100 nm (0.1 μm) to 70 µm were analyzed by the SEM and XRD methods. The electrochemical behaviors of the aluminum particles were examined by the cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge/discharge (GCD) measurements. The obtained results demonstrated the distinct lithiation/delithiation features of the aluminum electrodes at the potential couple of around 0.25 V/0.50 V vs. Li/Li⁺. Moreover, the GCD results also revealed the strong impact of the particle size on the initial capacity and galvanostatic discharge/charge potential profiles of electrode samples. However, aluminum electrodes with the large-sized particles showed dramatical capacity decay after certain cycles, and stabilized at around the specific capacity of 50 mAh g^-1 and exhibited capacitive charge/discharge behavior. In contrast, the nano-sized particles aluminum electrodes possessed stable electrochemical performance upon cycling, but with low initial capacities. The results in this work will enrich the knowledge of the aluminum-based anode for LIBs in future works.