Advantages
The most interesting result is the overcoming of the mechanical instability, the main drawback in using tin (like silicon, germanium and other lithium hosts). During lithium alloying and de-alloying, tin is subjected to large volume expansion and contraction leading to a rapid failure of the electrode. In order to prevent this occurrence, usually, solid electrolyte interface (SEI) promoter, or stabilizers are used. In some cases, new electrolyte has been tailored for the special anode. The patented method developed by CrMoSS discloses a new and cheap electrochemical way toward Sn-based anode production at about room-temperature. The procedure allows the growth of the nanostructured alloy directly on copper current collector, without using either binders or additional conductive promoters , making a ready-to-use anode for LIB. Preliminary electrochemical tests conducted in a half cell, with lithium foils as counter and reference electrodes. At a C-rate of 1C a residual capacity higher than 600 mAh g-1Sn after 100 cycles was reached with CSC-60, while CSC-50 at C/2 showed that these anodes can store about the theoretical specific capacity of tin. These findings can be attributed to the particular morphology of our anode and to the physical characteristics of tin. In particular, the values of lithium ion diffusion, and tin Young’s modulus allows to obtain better performances than with silicon. It is worthwhile to underline that these results have been achieved looking carefully at the engineering of the material, and without any addition of SEI stabilizers or other additives.


