Abstract
Micro/nanostructured spherical materials have been widely explored for electrochemical energy storage due to their exceptional properties, which have also been summarized based on electrode type and material composition. The increased complexity of spherical structures has increased the feasibility of modulating their properties, thereby improving their performance compared with simple spherical structures. This paper comprehensively reviews the synthesis and electrochemical energy storage applications of micro/nanostructured spherical materials. After a brief classification, the concepts and syntheses of micro/nanostructured spherical materials are described in detail, which include hollow, core-shelled, yolk-shelled, double-shelled, and multi-shelled spheres. We then introduce strategies classified into hard-, soft-, and self-templating methods for synthesis of these spherical structures, and also include the concepts of synthetic methodologies. Thereafter, we discuss their applications as electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors, and sulfur hosts for lithium–sulfur batteries. The superiority of multi-shelled hollow micro/nanospheres for electrochemical energy storage applications is particularly summarized. Subsequently, we conclude this review by presenting the challenges, development, highlights, and future directions of the micro/nanostructured spherical materials for electrochemical energy storage.
Highlights
As a unique family of functional materials, spherical structures offer structural stability, large surface area, low density, and short charges transport lengths [1,2,3,4]
Spherical structures exhibit tunable physical and chemical properties, which confer them with great structure advantages for electrochemical applications, such as lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) [18,19,20], lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs) [21,22,23,24], supercapacitors (SCs) [25,26,27,28], sodium-ion batteries, Li–selenium batteries, and fuel cells [29,30,31,32,33,34]
The Multi-shelled hollow spheres (MSHSs) structure is influenced by pH, temperature, solvent, and ionic strength
Summary
As a unique family of functional materials, spherical structures offer structural stability, large surface area, low density, and short charges transport lengths [1,2,3,4]. In the specific field of electrochemical energy storage, spherical structures are playing a more and more important role They hold great promise to break some of the current bottlenecks in LIBs, LSBs, and SCs [8,32]. In SCs, spherical structures can generally increase the energy densities of energy-storage devices due to their large surface area, low density, and high weight fraction of active species. We mainly summarized the latest development on the micro/nanostructured spherical materials including the typical structural types, and their applications for energy-related. Scheme 1 shows that these micro/nanostructured spherical materials are categorized into hollow, core-shelled, yolk-shelled, double-shelled, and multi-shelled micro/nanospheres Their applications as the sulfur hosts for LSBs, electrode materials for LIBs, and SCs conversion reactions are discussed. The soft template method is more suitable for the preparation of hollow spheres
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