Glass bottles based silicon electrode materials
Various embodiments provide glass bottle-based silicon electrode materials. A battery electrode includes silicon made from magnesiothermic reduction of silicon oxide derived from glass bottles and a conformal carbon coating thereon. A method of making the electrode material includes crushing glass bottles to produce crushed glass containing silicon oxide particles, mixing the silicon oxide particles with a heat scavenger to produce a mixture, magnesiothermically reducing the mixture to produce silicon, and applying a carbon coat to the silicon to produce an electrode material.
1. A method of making an electrode material comprising:
crushing glass bottles to produce crushed glass containing silicon oxide particles;
separating out light weight silicon oxide particles from the crushed glass;
mixing the silicon oxide particles with a heat scavenger to produce a mixture;
magnesiothermically reducing the mixture to produce silicon, wherein the silicon comprises an interconnected three-dimensional silicon network; and
applying a carbon coat to the silicon to produce an electrode material.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the silicon oxide particles are lightweight silicon oxide particles.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein separating out light weight silicon oxide particles comprises:
suspending the crushed glass in a solvent;
allowing larger silicon oxide particles to settle; and
collecting the light weight silicon oxide particles.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein crushing the glass bottles comprises hammering the glass bottles to produce crushed glass.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprises milling the crushed glass to produce lightweight silicon oxide particles.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising milling the silicon oxide particles prior to mixing the silicon dioxide particles with the heat scavenger.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the heat scavenger is sodium chloride.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein mixing the silicon oxide particles with a heat scavenger comprises milling the silicon oxide particles with the heat scavenger to produce the mixture.
9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising resuspending and vacuum drying the mixture.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein magnesiothermically reducing the mixture comprises adding magnesium to the mixture and heating.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein heating is done at a range from about 650° C. to about 750° C. for about 6 hours.
12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising removing excess heat scavenger and magnesium compounds.
13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising removing unreacted silicon dioxide.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein applying a carbon coat comprises chemical vapor deposition.