Simple fabrication of flexible electrodes with high metal-oxide content: electrospun reduced tungsten oxide/carbon nanofibers for lithium ion battery applications

Abstract

A one-step and mass-production synthetic route for a flexible reduced tungsten oxide-carbon composite nanofiber (WO(x)-C-NF) film is demonstrated via an electrospinning technique. The WO(x)-C-NF film exhibits unprecedented high content of metal-oxides (∼ 80 wt%) and good flexibility (the tensile strength of the specimen was 6.13 MPa) without the use of flexible support materials like CNTs or graphene. The WO(x)-C-NF film is directly used as an anode in a lithium ion battery (LIB). Compared with previously reported tungsten oxide electrodes, the WO(x)-C-NF film exhibits high reversible capacity (481 mA h g(-1)total electrode), stable cycle, and improved rate performance, without the use of additive carbon, a polymeric binder and a current collector. Moreover, control electrodes fabricated by conventional processes support the positive effects of both the freestanding electrode and metal-oxide embedded carbon 1-D nanofiber structure.

Fabrication of ultrafine manganese oxide-decorated carbon nanofibers for high-performance electrochemical capacitors

“…When increasing the Mn dosage from 0.09 to 1.36 wt%, the surface area and pore volume decrease from 1507 m 2 g -1 and 1.129 cm 3 g -1 for 0.025MnOn-CNF to 1366 m 2 g -1 and 0.961 cm 3 g -1 for 0.500MnOn-CNF (Table S1). In spite of this, it is noteworthy to mention that our fabricated MnOn-CNF composites exhibit the extremely high surface area and porosity, nearly 10 times of those reported [9][10][11][12][13]. Moreover, all MnOn-CNF composites show a similar pore size around 4.0 nm (Fig.…”

“…Such a tedious synthesis renders loosely attached metal oxides, which are randomly distributed on the external surface or near the pore mouth, eroding the reactivity and stability of composite materials finally. To replace such ``low efficient'' preparations, pyrolysis of electrospun fibers within metal and carbon precursors proves to be effective to construct evenly dispersed metal oxides firmly attached onto the carbon nanofibers [9][10]. However, the resulting composites often possess an extremely low surface area and porosity, though some pore-forming reagents, including surfactants and silica assistants, are often involved [11][12][13], which largely limits the power capacity.…”

Hierarchically structured reduced graphene oxide/WO3 frameworks for an application into lithium ion battery anodes

“…Moreover, battery performance can be dramatically degraded due to its low electrical conductivity and strong aggregation at high current densities and thus, power density is very limited by low rate capability [10]. In order to resolve these problems, one promising approach is to integrate WO 3 with the carbon nanomaterials having the benefits of a high surface area, excellent electrical conductivity, and electrochemical and mechanical stabilities [11][12][13]. Motivated by that the combination of active WO 3 and conductivity graphene serves as advanced anode materials, several groups reported various synthetic methods for the fabrication of graphene/WO 3 nanohybrids [14,15].…”

Ionic liquid-modulated preparation of hexagonal tungsten trioxide mesocrystals for lithium-ion batteries

“…The clear catodic/anodic peaks located at 1.43 and 0.89 V (versus Li + /Li) are associated with lithium insertion/extraction in the lattice, which is consistent with the previous h-WO 3 report. 25,51 Figure 4 shows the galvanostatic charge-discharge curves of the h-WO 3 biconical mesocrystalline electrode with a current density of 50 mA/g. The mesocrystalline electrode exhibits initial discharge (lithiation) and charge (delithiation) capacities of 1379 mAh/g and 1216 mAh/g, respectively.…”

“…and a promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] It should be pointed that bulk h-WO 3 electrodes often suffer from low capacity and poor cycle performance, even in some case show electrochemically inactive. Considering that mesocrystalline modification of electrode materials has exhibited the significant improvement for high electrochemical performance, [34][35][36][37][38] we try to apply this strategy into h-WO 3 electrodes in the present study.…”