Virus-Enabled Silicon Anode for Lithium- Ion Batteries

ilicon has emerged as one of the most promising next-generation anode materials for lithium-ion batteries due to its high theoretical capacity of 3572 mAh/g per weight and 8322 mAh/cm3 per volume for Li3.75Si at room temperature. 1,2 Despite its high capacity, however, the ex-treme volume change, 300400%,3 during lithium insertion and extraction leads to se-vere particle pulverization, resulting in elec-trically disconnected silicon particles and rapid capacity fading.4 Recently, silicon nanowires and nanotubes have been used to produce stable silicon anodes.411 Th