Synergistic effects of flake-like ZnO/SnFe2O4/nitrogen-doped carbon composites on structural stability and electrochemical behavior for lithium-ion batteries

Guang-Li Zhang; Chao-Feng Pan; Yan-Hui Sun; Jing-Lan Wei; Dong-Cai Guan; Jun-Min Nan

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.109

Synergistic effects of flake-like ZnO/SnFe₂O₄/nitrogen-doped carbon composites on structural stability and electrochemical behavior for lithium-ion batteries

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Jul 15:594:173-185. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.109. Epub 2021 Mar 9.

Authors

Guang-Li Zhang¹, Chao-Feng Pan¹, Yan-Hui Sun², Jing-Lan Wei¹, Dong-Cai Guan¹, Jun-Min Nan¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.
² School of Chemistry, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, PR China. Electronic address: 20031163@m.scnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33756363
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.109

Abstract

In order to improve the electrochemical performance and relieve volume expansion of pure SnFe₂O₄ anode for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), we synthesized a novel ZnO/SnFe₂O₄/nitrogen-doped carbon composites (ZSFO/NC) with flake-like polyhedron morphology by using ZIF-8 as a sacrificial template. Remarkably, it exhibited an initial charge/discharge capacities of 1078.3/1507.5 mAh g^-1 with a high initial coulombic efficiency (ICE) of 71.2%, and maintained a steady charge/discharge capacities of 1495.7/1511.8 mAh g^-1 at 0.2 A g^-1 after 300 cycles. The excellent rate performance of 435.6 mAh g^-1 at a higher current density of 10.0 A g^-1 and superior reversible capacity of 532.3/536.2 mAh g^-1 after 500 cycles at 2.0 A g^-1 were obtained. It revealed that the nitrogen-doped carbon matrix and peculiar structure of ZSFO/NC not only effectively buffered large volume expansion upon (de)lithiation through the synergistic interface action between ZnO, SnFe₂O₄ and NC, but also improved capacity of the composite by large contribution of surface pseudo-capacitance. The excellent charge-discharge performance showed that ZSFO/NC composite has a great potential for LIBs due to the synergistic effect of the multi-components.

Keywords: Anode; Lithium-ion battery; Synergistic effect; ZIF-8; ZnO/SnFe(2)O(4)/nitrogen-doped carbon.