A lithium-ion battery based on LiFePO4 and silicon nanowires

•Silicon nanowires were grown by vapor–liquid–solid mechanism.•The Si nanowires were coupled with a LiFePO4 cathode to make a Li-ion cell.•The cell showed a good capacity retention with increasing discharging currents.•The cell capacity rapidly declined with the increase of the cycle number.

In this paper the preparation and electrochemical characterization of silicon nanowires for using as the anode of a lithium-ion battery are reported. The nanowires were synthesized by CVD and characterized by SEM. The nanostructured material was used as an electrode in a lithium cell and its electrochemical properties were investigated by galvanostatic charge–discharge cycles at various charge rates. The electrode was coupled with a LiFePO4 cathode to fabricate a lithium-ion battery and the battery performance evaluated as a function of the discharge rate and cycle number.