Silicon Decorated Cone Shaped Carbon Nanotube Clusters for Lithium Ion Battery Anodes

In this work, we report the synthesis of an three-dimensional (3D) cone-shape CNT clusters (CCC) via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with subsequent inductively coupled plasma (ICP) treatment. An innovative silicon decorated cone-shape CNT clusters (SCCC) is prepared by simply depositing amorphous silicon onto CCC via magnetron sputtering. The seamless connection between silicon decorated CNT cones and graphene facilitates the charge transfer in the system and suggests a binder-free technique of preparing lithium ion battery (LIB) anodes. Lithium ion batteries based on this novel 3D SCCC architecture demonstrates high reversible capacity of 1954 mAh g(-1) and excellent cycling stability (>1200 mAh g(-1) capacity with ≈ 100% coulombic efficiency after 230 cycles).