Graphene-like 2D carbon wrapped porous carbon embedded SnO2/CoSn hybrid nanoparticles with enhanced lithium storage performance

Abstract

Eliminating the issues caused by large volumetric expansion and low conductivity is a critical tactic for the performance improvement of SnO2 anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Herein, the issues mentioned above are effectively alleviated and hence the lithium storage performance of the SnO2 is significantly improved through construction of a characteristic nanocomposite. In this nanocomposite the porous carbon embedded SnO2/CoSn hybrid nanoparticles are wrapped in a graphene-like 2-dimensional (2D) carbon nanosheets assembled three-dimensional (3D) carbon matrix. This nanocomposite is referred to as SnO2/CoSn@3DC. The SnO2/CoSn@3DC is demonstrated to integrate the advantages of heterogeneous hybrid nanoparticles, porous carbon and graphene-like 2D carbon nanosheets, therefore showing enhanced electrochemical kinetics and cycling stability. As a result, it delivers 887.1 mAh g − 1 after 110 cycles at 200 mA g − 1 as well as 803.4 mAh g − 1 after 170 cycles at 1000 mA g − 1, therefore exhibiting good potential in application in lithium-ion batteries as advanced anodes. Furthermore, the strategy reported here for preparing SnO2/CoSn@3DC may be extended to prepare other 2D carbon/metallic oxide/alloy composites for advanced lithium-ion battery anodes with various precursors such as ZnSn(OH)6 and FeSn(OH)6 compounds.