Nanoporous germanium prepared by a mechanochemical reaction with enhanced lithium storage properties

Xianyu Liu; Qianliang Zhang; Yansong Zhu; Shengjie Xu; Jia Zhang; Yanping Zheng; Lei Zhang; Mingguang Ma; Honghong Rao; Zheng Liu

doi:10.1039/d1dt03316f

Nanoporous germanium prepared by a mechanochemical reaction with enhanced lithium storage properties

Dalton Trans. 2022 Feb 22;51(8):3075-3080. doi: 10.1039/d1dt03316f.

Authors

Xianyu Liu^{1

2}, Qianliang Zhang³, Yansong Zhu³, Shengjie Xu⁴, Jia Zhang⁴, Yanping Zheng¹, Lei Zhang¹, Mingguang Ma¹, Honghong Rao¹, Zheng Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Urban Ecology and Environment, Nanomaterials Laboratory, Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730070, The People's Republic of China. liuzh@lzcu.edu.cn.
² Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Department of Applied Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, The People's Republic of China. xyliu15@mail.ustc.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Colloid and Interface Chemistry, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250100, The People's Republic of China.
⁴ School of Applied Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou Petrochemical University of Vocational Technology, Lanzhou, Gansu 730060, The People's Republic of China.

PMID: 35113107
DOI: 10.1039/d1dt03316f

Abstract

The cost-effective and facile fabrication of nanostructured germanium for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) remains a grand challenge. Herein, nanoporous Z-Ge was generated via a facile two-step mechanochemical-etching reaction with Mg₂Ge and ZnCl₂. The prepared nanoporous Ge nanoparticles, as the anode for Li-Ge half cells, showed superior LIB performance, in terms of a high capacity, good rate capability, and good long-term stability of 700 cycles. Significantly, the mechanochemical reaction was extended to produce other nanoporous Ge or Si materials such as A-Ge, Z-Si, and A-Si via the mechanochemical reaction between Mg₂Ge and AlCl₃, Mg₂Si and ZnCl₂, and Mg₂Si and AlCl₃.