Watermelon-Inspired Si/C Microspheres with Hierarchical Buffer Structures for Densely Compacted Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes

A dual protection strategy is proposed to improve the properties of densely compacted Si/C anodes by designing hie-rarchical buffer structure and optimizing size distribution. The Si/C anodes exhibit exceptional cycling stability and rate capability at high mass loading and pressing density. The satisfactory performance and scalable process facilitate the practical applications of Si/C materials in high-energy density lithium-ion batteries.