James Veltri, “Melt-Spinning Route to Synthesize Silicon Nano-powders for Lithium-Ion Battery Applications”
Mentor: Pradeep Rohatgi, Materials Science & Engineering
Poster #162

With the ever-increasing demand for energy needs, novelty of processes and active materials provide solutions to solve these issues. Rapid solidification process is known to obtain a fine grain structure for variety of engineering applications. Melt-spinning is one of the cost-effective rapid solidification processes that produces thin ribbons by having a finer grain structure. Nanoscale silicon powders have significant potential to be used as an anode material for Li-ion battery applications. For instance, silicon has a theoretical capacity of 3600 mAh/g which is nearly 10 times that of graphite-based materials currently used in batteries and energy applications. The main objective of this investigation is to obtain nanoscale silicon powders by chemical etching of rapidly solidified Al-12wt%Si eutectic alloys through melt-spinning route.  Thickness of melt spun ribbons can be controlled by varying several melt-spinning process parameters such as super-heating, thermal conductivity, rotational speed, and nozzle geometric factors. The incorporation of strontium into Al-Si alloys modifies the coarser Si dendritic morphology into globular shape silicon particles and is currently used as a grain refining element. The size of Si particles can also be further reduced into nanoscale by using a ball-milling process for finer size reduction and oxidation removal.