Journal of Environmental Protection, 2022, 13, 150-160 https://www.scirp.org/journal/jep ISSN Online: 2152-2219 ISSN Print: 2152-2197 DOI: 10.4236/jep.2022.131009 Jan. 19, 2022 150 Journal of Environmental Protection Fabrication of Silicon/Carbon Composite Material with Silicon Waste and Carbon Nanofiber Applied in Lithium-Ion Battery Ying-Yang Li, Che-Ya Wu, Tzu-Ying Lin * , Jenq-Gong Duh * Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NTHU, Taiwan Abstract Silicon (Si) is regarded as a promising material for lithium-ion battery anode because of high theoretical capacity. Nevertheless, Si faces particle pulveriza- tion and rapid capacity fading due to serious volume change during the lithi- ation and the delithiation process. In this work, a silicon/carbon composite constituted to Si powder and carbon nanofiber (CNF) is produced to solve the above issues as a new design structure of anode material. The Si powder was recycled from the silicon slicing waste in photovoltaic industry and the CNF was from dry rice straws. By mixing the purified Si powder with CNF, the composite was synthesized by the freeze-drying method and calcination. In the cyclic test, Si adding with 1 wt% CNF showed 3091 mAh/g capacity in the first cycle and 1079 mAh/g capacity after 100 cycles at the current density of 0.5 A/g, which were both better than pristine Si. SEM images also show the composite structure can eliminate cracks on the surface of the electrode dur- ing cycling. CNF attaching on Si particles can increase specific surface area, so binder can easily combine the active materials and the conductive mate- rials together. This strategy enhances the structure stability and prevents the electrode from delamination. Keywords Composite Material, Carbon Nanofiber, Waste Silicon, Anode Material, Lithium-Ion Battery 1. Introduction Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used in our daily life, including portable electronic devices, electric vehicles, and even grid energy storage [1] [2]. How- How to cite this paper: Li, Y.-Y., Wu, C.-Y., Lin, T.-Y. and Duh, J.-G. (2022) Fabrication of Silicon/Carbon Composite Material with Silicon Waste and Carbon Nanofiber Ap- plied in Lithium-Ion Battery. Journal of En- vironmental Protection, 13, 150-160. https://doi.org/10.4236/jep.2022.131009 Received: December 18, 2021 Accepted: January 16, 2022 Published: January 19, 2022 Copyright © 2022 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access