Constructing 3D Interconnected Si/SiO /C Nanorings from Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane.

Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) is a family of organic/inorganic hybrid materials with specific molecular symmetry, and shows great potential in the structural design of nanomaterials. Here, a "bottom-up" strategy is designed to fabricate 3D interconnected Si/SiO /C nanorings (NRs) via AlCl -assisted aluminothermic reduction using dodecaphenyl cage silsesquioxane (T -Ph) as the building block. In this process, AlCl acts as both a liquid medium for reduction, and significantly as the catalyst to the cross-linking of phenyl groups in T -Ph.

Facile Fabrication of High-Performance Si/C Anode Materials via AlCl-Assisted Magnesiothermic Reduction of Phenyl-Rich Polyhedral Silsesquioxanes.

Si/C composites, combining the advantages of both carbon materials and Si materials, have been proposed as the promising material in lithium-ion storage. However, up to now, the most common fabrication methods of Si/C composites are too complicated for practical application. Here, we first use phenyl-substituted cagelike polyhedral silsesquioxane (T-Ph, = 8, 12) as both carbon and silicon precursors to prepare the high-performance Si/C anode materials via a low-temperature and simple AlCl-assisted magnesiothermic reduction.