• • Increasing mesopore content in porous carbon reduces surface floating silicon by promoting deeper silicon deposition, as evidenced by a high specific capacity of 693.1 mAh/g after 150 cycles at 0.5 C (900 mA/g).
• • Excessive surface floating silicon hinders lithium-ion diffusion kinetics and accelerates SEI growth, leading to capacity fading and electrode degradation.
• • Porous carbon with higher micropore volume enables higher silicon mass loading but also increases surface silicon formation, necessitating a balance between pore volume and mesoporosity.
• • Optimizing pore structure and silane deposition duration can alleviate floating silicon formation, offering a pathway to improve cycling stability of CVD-derived silicon-carbon anodes.