Highly Ordered Mesoporous NiCo2O4 as a High Performance Anode Material for Li-Ion Batteries.

Qilong Ren,Weinan Xing,Bo Li,Shuilin Wu,Guangyu Wu,Junye Cheng,Rujia Zou,Pingping Li,Junqing Hu,Jiangang Han

doi:10.3389/fchem.2019.00521

Abstract

The controlled synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous structure has attracted considerable attention in the field of electrochemistry because of its high specific surface area which can contribute the transportation of ions. Herein, a general nano-casting approach is proposed for synthesizing highly ordered mesoporous NiCo2O4 microspheres. The as-synthesized mesoporous NiCo2O4 microsphere materials with high Brunner-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area (~97.77 m2g−1) and uniform pore size distribution around 4 nm exhibited a high initial discharge capacity of ~1,467 mAhg−1, a good rate capability as well as cycling stability. The superior electrochemical performance was mainly because of the highly porous nature of NiCo2O4, which rendered volume expansion during the process of cycling and shortened lithium-ions transport pathways. These properties showcase the inherent potential for use of highly ordered mesoporous NiCo2O4 microspheres as a potential anode material for lithium-ion batteries in the future.

Highlights

Lithium-ion batteries (Yoo et al, 2008; Pan et al, 2013) have been proven to be viable alternatives to traditional energy storage devices and are vital tools when coupled with emerging renewable energy sources (Lewis and Nocera, 2006; Song, 2006; Chheda et al, 2007)
Inspired by ammonium hydrogen carbonate-assisted solvothermal route to prepare Ni0.33Co0.67CO3 microspheres (Li et al, 2013), they led to a recent breakthrough technique to form mesoporous microspheres, we present a modified structure design containing ordered mesopores to further improve the electrochemical performance of NiCo2O4
The mesoporous NiCo2O4 microspheres were prepared via nano-casting, with the crystalline structure and phase purity characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD)

Summary

Introduction

Lithium-ion batteries (Yoo et al, 2008; Pan et al, 2013) have been proven to be viable alternatives to traditional energy storage devices and are vital tools when coupled with emerging renewable energy sources (Lewis and Nocera, 2006; Song, 2006; Chheda et al, 2007) (i.e., wind, solar, etc.). When acted as an anode material for Li-ion batteries, mesoporous NiCo2O4 microsphere electrode exhibits the superior electrochemical performance, whose stable specific capacity was 430 mAhg−1 after 100 cycles, which is better than that of the non-porous NiCo2O4 (270 mAhg−1 after 100 cycles).

Results

Conclusion