A surface multiple effect on the ZnO anode induced by graphene for a high energy lithium-ion full battery

Abstract

A low-cost, environment friendly and scalable strategy was proposed to prepare ZnO@graphene (ZnO@G) composites, in which ZnO nanoparticles can be evenly modified by graphene without obvious agglomeration and the tap density can reach to 1.68 g cm−3. When employed as an anode for Li-ion battery, the as-prepared ZnO@G (15 wt% graphene) exhibited an excellent reversible capacity of 720 mAh g−1 at 200 mA g−1 and 480 mAh g−1 even at 1600 mA g−1. Furthermore, a concept of high energy Li-ion full battery configurated the pre-lithiation ZnO@G (10 wt% graphene) anode and commercial LiCoO2 and LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 cathode was successfully assembled. Under the varying of pre-lithiation time to tune the appropriate compensating amount of initial irreversible capacity, one full battery of ZnO@G || LiCoO2 delivered a reversible capacity around 400 mAh g−1 (vs. anode) at 100 mA g−1 with working potential around 3.8 V and a high energy density of 1478 Wh kg−1 (vs. anode; 206.9 Wh kg−1vs. cathode); meanwhile, other full battery of ZnO@G || LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 exhibited a reversible capacity around 280 mAh g−1 (vs. anode) at 400 mA g−1, and it possessed a high energy density of 1787.2 Wh kg−1 (vs. anode; 446.8 Wh kg−1vs. cathode) at 400 mA g−1 and behaved superior rate capability. Furthermore, a proposition of surface multiple effect on the ZnO-based anode induced by graphene is demonstrated and it could be extended to designing some other advanced electrodes, benefiting from pre-lithiation process, the metal oxides electrode is identified to be a promising commercialized anode in high energy batteries.