Extremely facile preparation of high-performance Fe2O3 anode for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

As the concept of promoting environmental protection and energy conservation becomes more and more popular, reasonably green approaches for preparing high-performance nanostructured Fe2O3 anodes will be well received. Herein, porous Fe2O3 quasi-clusters assembled by smaller secondary nanoparticles have been successfully prepared by direct calcination of commercial ferric citrate in air atmosphere. Comparing with the traditionally hydrothermal methods of preparing various nanostructured Fe2O3, our approach are more facile and green because of no use of various solvents and reagents, and additional time- and power-consuming hydrothermal treatment. More importantly, the as-prepared Fe2O3 quasi-clusters show excellent electrochemical performance, delivering high capacities of 1187.1 and 448.3 mAh g−1 at 200 and 3000 mA g−1 after 350 and even 1500 cycles, respectively. Even comparing with the reported state-of-the-art nanostructural Fe2O3 anodes, the performance of as-prepared Fe2O3 quasi-clusters is competitive and even better. Thus, due to the relatively green and extremely facile preparation process, and excellent electrochemical performance, the as-achieved Fe2O3 quasi-clusters are expected as a promising candidate for advanced anode materials of lithium-ion batteries.