Hierarchical structure assembled from in-situ carbon-coated porous tin dioxide nanosheets towards high lithium storage

Abstract

Wide attention has been recently paid to the potential use of SnO2 material in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) as a new high performance anode owe to its advantages such as high theoretical specific capacity and moderate working potential. However, the intrinsic problems such as pronounced volume change and low conductivity make the capacity decay quickly and rate capability behave badly, therefore severely hindering the practical application of SnO2 in LIBs. Two-dimensional materials with unique physicochemical properties have gained great attention in energy storage and conversion field, and considered as promising candidates for advanced anode materials of LIBs. Herein, we demonstrate a one-pot hydrothermal and subsequently carbonized approach to prepare a hierarchical structure assembled from in-situ carbon-coated porous tin dioxide (SnO2) nanosheets (SnO2@C NSs). By comparison with similar hierarchical structure assembled from pure SnO2 nanosheets indicates that the in-situ carbon coating significantly improves the electrochemical performances of SnO2@C NSs in terms of stability of structures and kinetics of electrochemical reactions. Consequently, the SnO2@C NSs demonstrates superior electrochemical performances, revealing high reversible capacity of 1077.6 and 730 mAh g−1 at 200 and 1000mAg−1 after 160 and 800cycles, respectively, as well as outstanding rate capabilities. Thus, the as-prepared SnO2@C NSs with excellent performances exhibits good potential to be a promising candidate of advanced anode materials for LIBs. Additionally, this paper may provide a new insight to synthesize fine porous SnO2 nanosheets/carbon composites.