Contact : François Ozanam
Participants : François Ozanam, Michel Rosso, Catherine Henry de Villeneuve
Internship proposal :
Lithium-ion batteries are among the best current solutions for storing electrical energy. The replacement of carbon which is currently used in negative electrodes by silicon would further improve their performance. However, silicon undergoes very significant volume variations during charge/discharge cycles, yielding rapid battery degradation.
We are working on a new material derived from silicon, methylated amorphous silicon (Fig.1), which has the advantage of better accommodating volume variations. Our studies, carried out on thin layer electrodes (thickness ≤ 400 nm), show that this new material has a much better stability upon cycling (about 80% of the initial capacity preserved for more than one thousand cycles) and a faradic efficiency - ratio between the released charge and the stored charge - very close to unity.
Since 2022, in collaboration with the Solid Mechanics Laboratory of Ecole Polytechnique, we have been studying the coupling between mechanical stress and the silicon lithiation/delithiation process.
Fig. 1 : (a) Structure at the atomic scale of methylated amorphous silicon : the blue-cyan spheres represent the silicon atoms, the gray and the yellow spheres represent the methyl groups (1 carbon bonded to 3 hydrogens and to 1 silicon).
Recent theses :
Ngoc Tram Phung (2023), Methylated amorphous silicon for Li-ion batteries
Yue Feng (2021), Lithiation of Methylated Amorphous Silicon
Collaborations : IRCP (Chimie ParisTech), ICMPE (Thiais), LMS (Ecole Polytechnique).
Funding : E4C, DGA, chaire Total-DTER, chaire EDF-Développement durable.
Recent publications :
– Infrared Operando study of the SEI formed on methylated amorphous Si anodes, Ngoc Tram Phung, Yue Feng, Théodore M. Poupardin, Bon Min Koo, Catherine Henry de Villeneuve, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, ACS Appl. Energy Mater. 8 (2025) 4299–4310.
– Controlling homogeneity of the first lithiation in methylated amorphous silicon Yue Feng, Abdelhak Cheriet, Marianthi Panagopoulou, Catherine Henry-de-Villeneuve, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, Electrochimica Acta 403 (2022) 139655.
– ToF-SIMS Li depth profiling of pure and methylated amorphous
silicon electrodes after their partial lithiation, Yue Feng, Bon Min Koo, Antoine Seyeux, Jolanta Światowska, Catherine Henry de Villeneuve, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 14 (2022) 35716-35725
– In-situ Interferometry Study of ionic mass transfer phenomenon during the electrodeposition and dissolution of Li metal in solvate ionic liquids, Akinori Miki, Kei Nishikawa, Go Kamesui, Hisayoshi Matsushima, Mikito Ueda, Michel Rosso, J. Mater. Chem. A 9, (2021) 15095-15095
– Lithiation of pure and methylated amorphous silicon : monitoring by operando optical microscopy and ex situ atomic force microscopy, Yue Feng, Thuy-Doan-Trang Ngo, Marianthi Panagopoulou, Abdelhak Cheriet, Bon Min Koo, Catherine Henry-de-Villeneuve, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, Electrochim. Acta 302 (2019) 249-258
– Lithiation mechanism of methylated amorphous silicon unveiled by operando ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, Bon Min Koo, Daniel Alves Dalla Corte, Jean-Noël Chazalviel, Fouad Maroun, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, Adv. Energy Mater. 8 (2018) 1702568
– Spectroscopic insight into Li-ion batteries during operation : an alternative infrared approach, Daniel Alves Dalla Corte, Georges Caillon, Christian Jordy, Jean-Noël Chazalviel, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, Adv. Energy Mater., 6 (2016) 1501768
– Molecular grafting on silicon anodes : artificial Solid-Electrolyte Interphase and surface stabilization, Daniel Alves Dalla Corte, Anne Chantal Gouget-Laemmel, Khalid Lahlil, Georges Caillon, Christian Jordy, Jean-Noël Chazalviel, Thierry Gacoin, Michel Rosso, François Ozanam, Electrochim. Acta 201 (2016) 70-77
– Silicon as anode material for Li-ion batteries, François Ozanam, Michel Rosso, Materials Science and Engineering B 213 (2016) 2–11