A method for producing a porous element is presented. A powdery metal-ceramic composite material is produced. The composite material has a metal matrix and a ceramic portion amounting to less than 25 percent by volume. The metal matrix is at least partially oxidized to obtain a metal oxide. The metal-ceramic composite material is grinded and mixed with powdery ceramic supporting particles to obtain a metal-ceramic/ceramic mixture. The metal-ceramic/ceramic mixture is shaped into the porous element. The porous element can be used as an energy storage medium in a battery.

A highly dispersed silicon-carbon solid sol, a preparation method and application thereof. In the high-dispersion silicon-carbon solid sol, the silicon is a dispersed substance, the carbon is a dispersion medium. The silicon is covered by a continuous carbon layer or buried in a continuous carbon phase; a size of the silicon is less than 80 nm at least in one of dimensions, and a mass percentage of the silicon in the highly dispersed silicon-carbon solid sol is 5% to 90%. The nano-silicon particles are covered by the continuous carbon phase, which is not only conducive to obtaining nano-silicon particles with very small sizes, but also can effectively prevent the late oxidation of nano-silicon.

Disclosed are methods of making porous zinc electrodes. Taken together, the steps are: forming a mixture of water, a soluble compound that increases the viscosity of the mixture, an insoluble porogen, and metallic zinc powder; placing the mixture in a mold to form a sponge; optionally drying the sponge; placing the sponge in a metal mesh positioned to allow air flow through substantially all the openings in the mesh; heating the sponge in an inert atmosphere at a peak temperature of 200 to 420° C. to fuse the zinc particles to each other to form a sintered sponge; and heating the sintered sponge in an oxygen-containing atmosphere at a peak temperature of 420 to 700° C. to form ZnO on the surfaces of the sintered sponge. The heating steps burn out the porogen.

A method for preparing self-supporting flexible electrodes is provided using refined cellulose fibers as binder. The negative or positive self-supporting flexible electrode is obtained by such method. A Li-ion battery is also provided in which at least one electrode is a self-supporting flexible electrode.

An electrode for a non-aqueous secondary battery includes a current collector foil, and an electrode mixture layer provided on the current collector foil. The electrode mixture layer includes powder particles. The powder particles contain any one of metals or a metallic compound of zirconium, hafnium, zirconium carbide, hafnium carbide, and tungsten carbide as a conductive material.

An embodiment of the present invention provides an anode active material for a lithium secondary battery, which is a porous silicon-carbon composite including a plurality of nano-silicon particles embedded in a carbon-based material and having a plurality of pores, wherein the carbon-based material includes graphite particles, soft carbon, hard carbon, or a combination thereof, and based on 100 wt % of the porous silicon-carbon composite, a weight ratio of the graphite particles to the soft carbon, the hard carbon, or a combination thereof is 1:5 to 5:1.

The present invention provides a method of producing an electrode active material molded body for a lithium-ion battery suitable for the production of a lithium-ion battery, and a method of producing a lithium-ion battery using the electrode active material molded body, wherein the methods can reduce the time, work, equipment, and the like required for the production. The present invention provides a method of producing an electrode composition molded body for a lithium-ion battery, including: a molding step of molding a composition containing an electrode active material for a lithium-ion battery and an electrolyte solution into an electrode active material molded body for a lithium-ion battery as an unbound product of the electrode active material for a lithium-ion battery, wherein the composition has an electrolyte solution content of 0.1 to 40 wt % based on the weight of the composition.

The present invention discloses a method of preparing an electrode material for lithium-ion batteries comprising the steps of preparing a mixture of precursors taken in predefined stoichiometric ratios for synthesis of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), adding niobium pentoxide as a precursor for doping of niobium at Li+ site of LiFePO.sub.4 for synthesis of niobium doped LiFePO.sub.4 and ball milling operation provides nano sized powder particles. Now, a precursor of carbon is added to said mixture of precursors for synthesizing and obtaining carbon coated niobium doped LiFePO.sub.4 nano sized powder particles. Pellets of required size are prepared and sintered. The obtained pellets are structurally characterized.

Silicon particles for active materials and electro-chemical cells are provided. The active materials comprising silicon particles described herein can be utilized as an electrode material for a battery. In certain embodiments, the composite material includes greater than 0% and less than about 90% by weight of silicon particles. The silicon particles have an average particle size between about 0.1 μm and about 30 μm and a surface including nanometer-sized features. The composite material also includes greater than 0% and less than about 90% by weight of one or more types of carbon phases. At least one of the one or more types of carbon phases is a substantially continuous phase.

A porous tin foil anode includes a porous tin foil. A plurality of holes are uniformly formed on the porous tin foil. A triangular area formed by lines connecting centers of three adjacent holes is used as a smallest unit. The proportion of the area of the holes in each smallest unit is 1%-89%. The distance between the edge of the porous tin foil and the hole is 0.1 mm-10 mm. The porous tin foil anode can be applied to a sodium ion battery system that uses tin foil as both a current collector and an anode active material, which effectively solves the problem of battery expansion and alleviates the problem of decomposition of the solid electrolyte membrane during the charge and discharge process of the battery. The short circuiting that occurs because of burrs on the tin foil puncturing the separator is also eliminated.