Snake-like ZnO nanorods encapsulated by carbon shell self-assembled on the porous N-doped carbon nanocages with Co3O4 and ZnO nanoparticles embedded for superior lithium storage

Abstract

The exploration of electrode materials with improved performance is continuously at the forefront of lithium ion storage research. Through calcination in an argon atmosphere after stirring the glucose with MOF precursors, we can effectively obtain the ZnO/Co3O4@NC@R-1-0.1 composite. It can be observed that ZnO and Co3O4 nanoparticles are uniformly embedded in the N-doped porous carbon nanocages without any aggregation and the snake-like ZnO nanorods with special core-shell structure self-assemble on the surface of the nanocages. To the best of our knowledge, it has been firstly reported that ZnO exhibits the appearance of snake-like nanorods in the composite. Meanwhile, the size and number of the snake-shaped nanorods can be effectively adjusted by changing the amount of glucose. When tested as electrode materials in LIBs, the materials with unique hierarchical structures demonstrated remarkable superior lithium-storage capacity and cycling stability (958 mA h g-1 at 2 A g-1 after 1500 cycles).