Designed Synthesis of Coaxial SnO₂@carbon Hollow Nanospheres for Highly Reversible Lithium Storage

Abstract

A proof‐of‐concept structural design is demonstrated for high‐capacity lithium‐ion batteries anode materials by multistep synthesis of coaxial SnO2@carbon hollow nanospheres. This material integrates two beneficial features: hollow structure and carbon nanopainting. When evaluated for reversible lithium storage, these functional materials manifest excellent cycling performance and rate capabilities.

High reversible capacity of SnO2/graphene nanocomposite as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries

“…3c and d, it can be observed that the graphene sheets are distributed between the SnO 2 nanoparticles and the nanoporous composite with large amount of void spaces was formed [30]. Such porous nanocomposite can possess excellent cycle performance as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries due to the large amount of void spaces which could buffer large volume changes of SnO 2 nanoparticles during lithium ions insertion/extraction process [7,8,12,16,18,30,38]. Moreover, the graphene sheets distributed between the SnO 2 nanoparticles can prevent the aggregation of these nanoparticles to a certain extent [9,14,25,32,38], which can be of great benefit to cycle life.…”

“…The increased pore volume could arises primarily from the formation of secondary pores between the SnO 2 nanoparticles and graphene sheets as well as the close stacking of graphene sheets distributed between the SnO 2 nanoparticles [38]. The nanopores in SnO 2 /graphene nanocomposite could act as buffering spaces against the volume changes of SnO 2 nanoparticles during lithium ion insertion/extraction process [7,8,13,14,18,38], which would lead to enhanced cycling stability as an anode material for lithiumion batteries.…”

“…However, its application in practical lithium-ion batteries is still hampered by the poor cycling performance arising from the severe aggregation and huge volume changes of SnO 2 particles during Li insertion/extraction process . The large volume changes of SnO 2 particles during lithium ions insertion/extraction process causes cracking and crumbling, which will result in electrical disconnection of active material with current collector and consequently limit the cycling capability of electrodes [6][7][8][17][18][19][20]. The agglomeration of primitive particles drastically reduces the total entrance/exit sites available for Li + ions and creates even more severe mechanical stresses in the surface region of a particulate aggregate, leading to poor electrochemical performance [13,23,25].…”

“…One strategy is to design hollow or porous structure SnO 2 anode materials [6][7][8]13,15,20,27]. Another one is to prepare SnO 2 /C composites by loading SnO 2 nanoparticles into a ductile carbon matrix [9][10][11][12]17,18,21,25,26]. The second strategy is very effective to improve the electrochemical performance of SnO 2 material.…”

High rate capability and cyclic stability of hierarchically porous Tin oxide (IV)–carbon nanofibers as anode in lithium ion batteries

“…Poor cycle life) due to the volume change and pulverization of electrode during alloying-dealloying (Cherian et al 2013b;Lou et al 2009). To overcome these problems, two different approaches have been adapted by researchers to improve cyclability and maintain high capacity, first, to use nanostructured tin compounds (Cherian et al 2013b) and second to use carbon-SnO 2 matrix which acts as buffer to reduce the strain during lithiationdelithiation.…”