American Chemical Society, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 21(6), p. 18800-18807, 2014
DOI: 10.1021/am5045168
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A rapid (< 30 s) synthetic protocol for the formation of high performance Ge nanowire based Li-ion battery anodes is reported. The nanowires are formed in high density by the liquid deposition of a Ge precursor without solvents directly onto a heated stainless steel substrate under inert conditions. The novel growth system exploits the in-situ formation of discrete Cu3Ge catalyst seeds from 1 nm thermally evaporated Cu layers. As the nanowires were grown from a suitable current collector, the electrodes could be used directly without binders in lithium-ion half cells. Electrochemical testing showed remarkable capacity retention with 866 mAhg-1 achieved after 1900 charge/discharge cycles with a Coulombic efficiency of 99.7 %. The nanowire based anodes also showed high-rate stability with discharge capacities of 800 mAhg-1 when cycled at a rate of 10C.