Batteries are commonly considered as one of the key technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions caused by the transport, power, and industry sectors. We need to remember that not only the production of energy needs to be realized sustainably, but also the technologies for energy storage need to follow the green guidelines to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases effectively. To reach the sustainability goals, we have to make batteries with the performances beyond their present capabilities concerning their lifetime, reliability, and safety. To be commercially viable, the technologies, materials, and chemicals utilized in batteries must support scalability that enables cost-effective large-scale production. As lithium-ion battery (LIB) is still the prevailing technology of the rechargeable batteries for the next ten years, the most practical approach to obtain batteries with better performance is to develop the chemistry and materials utilized in LIBs - especially in terms of safety and commercialization. To this end, silicon is the most promising candidate to obtain ultra-high performance on the anode side of the cell as silicon gives the highest theoretical capacity of the anode exceeding ten times the one of graphite. With balancing the other components in the cell, it is realistic to increase the overall capacity of the battery by 100 - 200%. However, exploitation silicon in LIBs is anything else than a simple task due to the severe material-related challenges caused by lithiation/delithiation during battery cycling. The present review makes a comprehensive overview of the latest studies focusing on the utilization of nanosized silicon as the anode material in LIBs.

中文翻译：

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锂离子电池中纳米硅负极的挑战与前景

电池通常被认为是减少交通、电力和工业部门二氧化碳排放的关键技术之一。我们需要记住，不仅能源生产需要实现可持续发展，储能技术也需要遵循绿色准则，以有效减少温室气体排放。为了实现可持续发展目标，我们必须制造出超出其现有能力的电池，包括其寿命、可靠性和安全性。为了在商业上可行，电池中使用的技术、材料和化学品必须支持可扩展性，以实现具有成本效益的大规模生产。由于锂离子电池（LIB）仍是未来十年充电电池的主流技术，获得性能更好的电池最实用的方法是开发用于锂离子电池的化学和材料——尤其是在安全性和商业化方面。为此，硅是在电池阳极侧获得超高性能的最有希望的候选者，因为硅提供的阳极最高理论容量超过石墨的十倍。通过平衡电池中的其他组件，将电池的总容量提高 100 - 200% 是现实的。然而，由于电池循环过程中的锂化/脱锂化会带来严重的材料相关挑战，因此在 LIB 中开发硅绝非一项简单的任务。