Sn nanoparticles uniformly dispersed in N-doped hollow carbon nanospheres as anode for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

Sn-contained N-doped carbon composite (Sn@NC) with Sn nanoparticles of 5–30nm uniformly dispersed in N-doped hollow carbon nanosphere matrix was produced by in-situ polymerization of pyrrole, and reduction of SnO2 synchronous with decomposition of polypyrrole. SnO2 nanospheres serve as both the template of hollow carbon nanospheres and the Sn source. Due to the cooperation of the uniformly dispersed Sn particles and N-doped hollow carbon structure, the obtained Sn@NC shows a reversible capacity of 1070mAhg−1 over 200 cycles at 0.2C and 500mAhg−1 over 500 cycles at 5C.