Bimetal-Organic-Framework Derivation of Ball-Cactus-Like Ni-Sn-P@C-CNT as Long-Cycle Anode for Lithium Ion Battery

Ruoling Dai; Weiwei Sun; Li-Ping Lv; Minghong Wu; Hao Liu; Guoxiu Wang; Yong Wang

doi:10.1002/smll.201700521

Bimetal-Organic-Framework Derivation of Ball-Cactus-Like Ni-Sn-P@C-CNT as Long-Cycle Anode for Lithium Ion Battery

Small. 2017 Jul;13(27). doi: 10.1002/smll.201700521. Epub 2017 May 22.

Authors

Ruoling Dai¹, Weiwei Sun¹, Li-Ping Lv¹, Minghong Wu¹, Hao Liu¹, Guoxiu Wang², Yong Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai, 200444, P. R. China.
² Centre for Clean Energy Technology, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia.

PMID: 28544389
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201700521

Abstract

Metal phosphides are a new class of potential high-capacity anodes for lithium ion batteries, but their short cycle life is the critical problem to hinder its practical application. A unique ball-cactus-like microsphere of carbon coated NiP₂ /Ni₃ Sn₄ with deep-rooted carbon nanotubes (Ni-Sn-P@C-CNT) is demonstrated in this work to solve this problem. Bimetal-organic-frameworks (BMOFs, Ni-Sn-BTC, BTC refers to 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid) are formed by a two-step uniform microwave-assisted irradiation approach and used as the precursor to grow Ni-Sn@C-CNT, Ni-Sn-P@C-CNT, yolk-shell Ni-Sn@C, and Ni-Sn-P@C. The uniform carbon overlayer is formed by the decomposition of organic ligands from MOFs and small CNTs are deeply rooted in Ni-Sn-P@C microsphere due to the in situ catalysis effect of Ni-Sn. Among these potential anode materials, the Ni-Sn-P@C-CNT is found to be a promising anode with best electrochemical properties. It exhibits a large reversible capacity of 704 mA h g^-1 after 200 cycles at 100 mA g^-1 and excellent high-rate cycling performance (a stable capacity of 504 mA h g^-1 retained after 800 cycles at 1 A g^-1 ). These good electrochemical properties are mainly ascribed to the unique 3D mesoporous structure design along with dual active components showing synergistic electrochemical activity within different voltage windows.

Keywords: Ni3Sn4; NiP2; carbon nanotubes; lithium ion batteries; metal organic frameworks.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't