Phosphorus Doping for Enhanced Lithium Storage Performances over Multiscale Porous SiGeSnSbPAl Composite Anode

The development of high-performance lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) hinges on searching for advanced anode materials with large specific capacities as well as high cycling stability. However, traditional graphite anodes have not met the demand for higher energy storage owing to the deficiency of low lithium storage capacity. In the current work, we focus on designing one composite anode material with multiscale porous (MP) structure and phosphorus (P) doping. The coupling effects of three-dimensional (3D) interconnected skeleton, hollow pore channels, and P doping can facilitate the electrolyte diffusion and the mass transfer, as well as accommodate the volume changes during lithiation/delithiation processes. As expected, the as-prepared MP-SiGeSnSbPAl composite exhibits superior lithium storage performance, achieving a specific capacity of 827.9 mAh/g after 150 cycles at 200 mA/g and maintaining the high capacity of 456.7 mAh/g after 400 cycles at 1 A/g. Contrastively, the corresponding surplus capacities are only 590.3 and 225.7 mAh/g for the non-doped counterparts, respectively. In particular, MP-SiGeSnSbPAl displays much more stable cycling performances under the measurement of high areal mass loading of ~ 3 mg/cm² and the full-cell tests with the lithium iron phosphate as the cathode. This work witnesses one scalable protocol for preparing multinary Si-based composite in terms of facile operation and high lithium storage performances. © The Author(s) 2025.