Porous engineering enables one-dimensional CoxOy/C composite to enhance lithium storage

Abstract

Herein, in order to improve performance of cobalt oxides for lithium-ion battery anodes, a one-dimensional porous CoxOy composed of CoO and Co3O4 has been fabricated and further coated by a characteristically porous layer of carbon through a facile integrated porous engineering. The as-prepared CoxOy@porous carbon (CoxOy@PC) composite therefore integrates the advantages of the one-dimensional and porous structures. Thus architecture successfully boosts the structural stability and efficiently enhances the electrochemical kinetics of the CoxOy@PC anode. The results reveal that the CoxOy@PC anode shows significantly improved performance with 964.7 and 908.6 mA h g−1 at 200 and 1000 mA g−1 after 200 and 100 cycles, respectively. It demonstrates that the porous engineering plays an important role in improving performance of CoxOy@PC anode, which is conducive to mitigation of volume change, permeation of electrolyte, and ion diffusion and mass transport. This CoxOy@PC therefore shows great promise in application of high-performance anode for lithium-ion batteries. Moreover, this study gives an efficient strategy to concern the intrinsic drawbacks of the cobalt oxide anodes, which could be extended to other high capacity of metallic oxide-based anodes toward high energy-density batteries.