Inspite of their impressive high theoretical capacity as Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) anodes, spinel transition-metal oxides (TMOs) suffer serious volume expansion, aggregation and the pulverization of crystal structures during lithiation/delithiation, and this process severely restrict their industrial application. Multi-dimensional morphological engineering of spinel TMO nanostructures is an effective way to solve this issue. In this work, using facile hydrothermal synthetic methods, spinel CuCo2O4 nanowires arrays are synthesized and supported on g-C3N4 nanosheets, thus forming a unique sandwich-like interconnected three-dimensional mesoporous structure containing high amount of void spaces. Addition of g-C3N4 nanosheets to CuCo2O4 nanowire arrays may shorten the Li+ diffusion distance and electron transfer pathway, and may also provide more active sites for Li+ diffusion into electrolyte and buffer for the volume expansion and aggregation of CuCo2O4. As a LIB anode material, CuCo2O4@g-C3N4 shows initial lithiation capacity of 840.6 mAh g-1, and capacity retention of 641.2 mAh g-1 after 60 cycles at the current density of 0.1 A g-1 and 499.2 mAh g-1 after 40 cycles at high current of 1 A g-1, which is significantly better than value of pure CuCo2O4 nanowires. This work affords a new way to tackle the problem of volume expansion of high capacity spinel TMO anode materials using g-C3N4 nanosheets as buffering agent.
Keywords: Anode materials; CuCo(2)O(4) nanowires; Lithium-ion batteries; Morphological engineering; g-C(3)N(4).
Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Inc.