The electrode material will expand/shrink in volume during the process of lithium insertion/desorption, and this volume effect often causes the material to break and fail. Therefore, the structural stability of the electrode material during the charge-discharge cycle has a vital impact on the battery's capacity, rate, and cycle life.

　　The electrode material will be accompanied by volume expansion/shrinkage during the process of lithium insertion/desorption, and this volume effect often causes the material to break and fail. Therefore, the structural stability of the electrode material during the charge-discharge cycle has a vital impact on the battery's capacity, rate, and cycle life.

　　Based on the phenomenon that silicon dioxide (SiO2) as a filler can improve the mechanical properties of composite materials, the research team of Professor Wang Hongkang from the Qianren Niu Chunming team of the School of Electrical Engineering of Xi’an Jiaotong University designed and successfully prepared a SiO2-reinforced porous Sb/C fiber composite material . The silicon source (ethyl silicate), antimony source (antimony trichloride) and carbon source (polyvinylpyrrolidone) are prepared into a fiber structure by electrospinning, and then a porous carbon fiber coated with SiO2 and Sb nanometers is formed through heat treatment in one step. The unique structure of the particles. The introduction of SiO2 greatly enhanced the overall structural stability of the fiber. As a negative electrode material for lithium ion batteries, the obtained SiO2/Sb/C porous fiber electrode shows excellent electrochemical performance in both half-cell and full-cell tests. Carbon fiber not only improves the conductivity of the electrode material, but its porous structure effectively absorbs the volume change of SiO2 and Sb during the lithium insertion/desorption process. Characterization by in-situ and ex-situ electron microscopy further reveals the structural stability of the material in the process of lithium insertion/desorption. The idea of enhancing the structure of electrode materials proposed in this work is to use SiO2 enhancement effect (Silica-Reinforcement Effect) to simultaneously achieve the dual improvement of electrode structure stability and lithium storage performance, and the method is versatile (Materials Today Energy 2016, 1– 2, 24-32; Nanoscale 2016, 8, 7595-7603).

　　The research results were published online on the ACS Nano (impact factor 13.942), an international authoritative journal in the field of nanotechnology, entitled "Encapsulating Silica/Antimony into Porous Electrospun Carbon Nanofibers with Robust Structure Stability for High-Efficiency Lithium Storage". The School of Electrical Engineering of Xi'an Jiaotong University is the first to complete the paper, and Wang Hongkang is the first author and corresponding author of the paper. The collaborators include Professor Mi Shaobo from School of Telecommunications, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Professor Zhang Qiaobao from Xiamen University, and Professor Andrey Rogach from City University of Hong Kong.

　　The research work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Xi'an Jiaotong University "Young Top Talent Support Program", Tang Zhongying Foundation, School of Electrical Engineering Young Teacher Support Program, State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation for Power Equipment, and Xi'an Jiaotong University Analysis and Testing Sharing Center.