Due to the growing need for high energy lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), there has been significant focus on developing nano silicon-active materials as alternative electrodes. These materials are attractive because they have a high theoretical capacity of around 4200 mAh g⁻¹. Nevertheless, the use of Bare Si results in significant volume growth, pulverization, and deterioration during cycle. Nanostructured silicon (Si) electrodes can exhibit consistent electrochemical performance in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), but, the intricate procedure and expensive nature of these electrodes are not in line with industry norms. In this work, we present a straightforward and efficient electrochemical deposition (ED) method for electrochemically depositing silicon (Si) nano-particles (approximately 220 nm) from silicon tetrachloride (SiCl₄) onto a graphene-coated copper (GCu) substrate at room temperature using a water-contaminated Butyl Methyl Imidazolium trifluoro methyl sulphonyl imide (BMImTf₂N) ionic liquid. Graphene offers mechanical support to reduce the significant volume changes of silicon nanoparticles during charge/discharge cycles, as well as strong adhesive properties to the silicon nanoparticles which contribute to excellent electrical conductivity. In addition, stress Distribution inside and between Si and Si-Grn particles were characterize by using computational and theoretical approaches. The Si on GCu electrodes exhibited a notable initial capacity of 2610 mAh g^-1 at C/2 rate and maintained 1080 mAhg^-1 after 100th cycles. Furthermore, high-rate performance of Si on GCu show a very long stable cycling performance with 971 mAhg^-1 capacity for over 200 cycles (at 1C rate with 70.5% retention) in a test cell setting, clearly demonstrating the practical applicability of Si on GCu electrodes.

Personal History: Dr. Indrajit Mukhopadhyay has been working as a Professor in the Dept. of Solar Energy, Pandit Deendayal Energy University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, since 2011. He received the prestigious CSIR rural technology award 2008 and Vikram Sarabhai Award 2006 as a key team member for his excellent contribution in the field of chemical sciences while working at CSMCRI (CSIR), Bhavnagar. He has published more than 250 research papers having an H index of 34 (Google scholar).

Research interests: Interfacial Electron Transfer, Electro-crystallization, Battery and electrochemical Sensor, Photo-electrochemistry.