A Facile Electrophoretic Deposition Route to the Fe₃O₄/CNTs/rGO Composite Electrode as a Binder-Free Anode for Lithium Ion Battery

Fe₃O₄ is regarded as an attractive anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) due to its high theoretical capacity, natural abundance, and low cost. However, the poor cyclic performance resulting from the low conductivity and huge volume change during cycling impedes its application. Here we have developed a facile electrophoretic deposition route to fabricate the Fe₃O₄/CNTs (carbon nanotubes)/rGO (reduced graphene oxide) composite electrode, simultaneously achieving material synthesis and electrode assembling. Even without binders, the adhesion and mechanical firmness of the electrode are strong enough to be used for LIB anode. In this specific structure, Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (NPs) interconnected by CNTs are sandwiched by rGO layers to form a robust network with good conductivity. The resulting Fe₃O₄/CNTs/rGO composite electrode exhibits much improved electrochemical performance (high reversible capacity of 540 mAh g^–1 at a very high current density of 10 A g^–1, and a remarkable capacity of 1080 mAh g^–1 can be maintained after 450 cycles at 1 A g^–1) compared with that of commercial Fe₃O₄ NPs electrode

Binder-Free Si Nanoparticle Electrode with 3D Porous Structure Prepared by Electrophoretic Deposition for Lithium-Ion Batteries

A binder-free silicon (Si) based electrode for lithium-ion battery was fabricated in an organic solvent through one-step electrophoretic deposition (EPD). The nanosized Si and acetylene black (AB) particles were bonded tightly together to form a homogeneous co-deposited film with 3D porous structure through the EPD process. The 3D porous structure provides buffer spaces to alleviate the mechanical stress due to silicon volume change during the cycling and improves lithium-ion conductivity by shortening ion diffusion length and better ion conducting pathway. The electrode prepared with 5 s deposition duration shows the best cycling performance among electrodes fabricated by EPD method, and thus, it was selected to be compared with the silicon electrode prepared by the conventional method. Our results demonstrate that the Si nanoparticle electrode prepared through EPD exhibits smaller cycling capacity decay rate and better rate capability than the electrode prepared by the conventional method