High performance porous iron oxide-carbon nanotube nanocomposite as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

Here, we showed that relatively high content of Fe3O4 nanoparticles (up to 83wt. %) can be homogeneously dispersed into carbon nanotubes (CNTs) conductive networks using non-aqueous media by refluxing method. Three different Fe3O4-CNTs composites were prepared, i.e., Fe3O4-CNTs-50, Fe3O4-CNTs-80 and Fe3O4-CNTs-90 that contain increasing amount of Fe3O4 from 50wt. % to 83wt. % and to 89wt. %. These composites have higher surface area and higher pore volume than Fe3O4 component due to CNTs content. The best composite, i.e., Fe3O4-CNTs-80 demonstrated negligible capacity loss up to 100 cycles and high discharge capacity of 930mA h g−1 at 100th cycle and 100mAg−1 current discharge rate. This composite also exhibited excellent rate capability where up to the 78.8% of original capacity can be retained at high current discharge rate of 1000mAg−1. These performances were enabled by a unique porous architecture based on homogenous dispersion of Fe3O4 nanoparticles into CNTs networks that leads to short Li+ diffusion path, high electric conductivity and buffering space to accommodate large volume change of Fe3O4 component during the charge-discharge processes.