Morphological engineering of resin-derived porous carbon supports to control confined silicon deposition and fabricate high-performance silicon-carbon anodes

Silicon‑carbon composites are promising anode materials for next-generation lithium-ion batteries, yet the influence of carbon precursor morphology on pore evolution, silicon deposition, and electrochemical performance remains poorly understood. Herein, spherical and near-spherical resin-derived carbon precursors were employed to construct porous carbon hosts through steam activation, followed by confined silicon deposition via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The results indicate that the highly regular morphology of the spherical precursor favours more uniform activation and pore development. S-ARC exhibits a predominantly microporous structure with a BET specific surface area of 1927.36 m 2 /g. Consequently, the spherical Si/C composite delivers a first-discharge capacity of 2077.84 mAh/g and an initial Coulombic efficiency of 93.93%, outperforming the near-spherical counterpart (1798.54 mAh/g and 90.94%). Compared with NS-ARC@Si@C, S-ARC@Si@C showed a lower fitted charge-transfer resistance and higher apparent Li + diffusion coefficients, accompanied by improved cycling stability and rate capability. This work highlights precursor morphology engineering as an effective strategy for regulating carbon architectures and optimising CVD-derived silicon deposition toward high-performance Si/C anodes.