Diverse-shaped tin dioxide nanoparticles within a plastic waste-derived three-dimensional porous carbon framework for super stable lithium-ion storage

Abstract

Tin dioxides (SnO2) inserted into carbons to serve as anodes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are known to improve their cycling stability. However, studies on diverse-shaped SnO2 nanoparticles within a porous carbon matrix for super stable lithium-ion storage are rare. Herein, a hollow carbon sphere/porous carbon flake (HCS/PCF) framework is fabricated through template carbonization of plastic waste. By changing the doping mechanism and tuning the loading content, nano SnO2 spheres and cubes as well as bulk SnO2 flakes and blocks are in-situ grown within the HCS/PCF. Then, the as-prepared hybrids with built-in various morphological SnO2 nanoparticles serve as anodes towards advanced lithium-ion batteries. Notably, HCS/PCF embedded with nano SnO2 spheres and cubes anodes possess superb long-term cycling stability (~0.048% and ~0.05% average capacitance decay per cycle at 1 A/g over 400 cycles) with high reversible specific capacities of 0.45 and 0.498 Ah/g after 1000 cycles at 5 A/g. The ultra-stabilized Li+ storage is attributed to the effective mitigation of nano SnO2 spheres/cubes volume expansion, originating from the compact SnO2 yolk-HCS/PCF shell construction. This study paves a general strategy for disposing of polymeric waste to produce SnO2 core-carbon shell anodes for super stable lithium-ion storage.