Shell-by-Shell Synthesis and Applications of Carbon-Coated SnO₂ Hollow Nanospheres in Lithium-Ion Battery

Abstract

SnO 2 hollow nanospheres were synthesized from glucose and SnCl 2 solution under hydrothermal environment and calcinations. The carbon layer was then deposited as a buffer layer via hydrothermally treated glucose solution. The thickness of the SnO 2 shell in the hollow structures could be adjusted by changing the concentration of the SnCl 2 coating solution. The crystalline structure and morphological observation of the as-synthesized hollow structures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thickness of SnO 2 under 0.1 and 1 M SnCl 2 coating solution was 15 and 60 nm, respectively. It was demonstrated that the electrochemical performance was significantly improved by the hollow structure and strongly affected by the shell thickness of SnO 2 . The hollow structure with 15 nm in SnO 2 thickness exhibited an outstanding reversible capacity of 500 mA hg -1 at 5 C. The extraordinary performance should be associated with the ultrathin SnO 2 shell and the carbon layer, which could accommodate the volume changes and prevent the agglomeration of Sn particles during cycling.

One-Pot Synthesis of Three-Dimensional Graphene/Carbon Nanotube/SnO2 Hybrid Architectures with Enhanced Lithium Storage Properties

“…Two peaks centered at 496.4 eV and 487.9 eV corresponded to Sn 3d 3/2 and Sn 3d 5/2 , respectively, which was in good agreement with previously reported data for SnO 2 phase. 43 The obtained GCS and GS were then characterized by XRD (Figure 3a the BET surface area of GCS was 322.5 m 2 g -1 , which was higher than that of GS (234.9 m 2 g -1 ). This result highlights that the introduction of CNTs into graphene 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 based materials was an effective approach to achieve hybrid materials with high surface area.…”

High reversible capacity of SnO2/graphene nanocomposite as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries

“…In contrast, a charge plateau above 1.0 V constantly existed during all the charge/discharge cycles of the SnO 2 /graphene nanocomposite, indicating that the reaction between SnO 2 and Li, SnO 2 + 4Li + + 4e − → 2Li 2 O + Sn, is constantly reversible. The possible reason is that the graphene sheets in the SnO 2 /graphene nanocomposite can prevent the aggregation of in situ formed Sn nanoparticles [10,22]. The initial coulombic efficiency of the SnO 2 /graphene is 59%, but it is above 94% after 5 cycles.…”

Self-assembled synthesis of nanoflower-like Li4Ti5O12 for ultrahigh rate lithium-ion batteries

“…Consequently, Sn-based materials have attracted particular interest as negative electrodes, due to their higher theoretical lithium storage capacities, higher lithium packing density and proper operating voltage [2]. Nevertheless, the most critical problem is the severe volume changes during lithium alloy and dealloy, causing electrode disintegration, reducing battery life, and finally limiting the possibility of commercialization [3,4].…”