Boron doping-induced interconnected assembly approach for mesoporous silicon oxycarbide architecture

Guanjia Zhu; Rui Guo; Wei Luo; Hua Kun Liu; Wan Jiang; Shi Xue Dou; Jianping Yang

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwaa152

Boron doping-induced interconnected assembly approach for mesoporous silicon oxycarbide architecture

Natl Sci Rev. 2020 Jul 2;8(6):nwaa152. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa152. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Authors

Guanjia Zhu¹, Rui Guo¹, Wei Luo¹, Hua Kun Liu², Wan Jiang¹, Shi Xue Dou², Jianping Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, International Joint Laboratory for Advanced Fiber and Low-dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
² Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, Australian Institute of Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong, North Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.

Abstract

Despite desirable progress in various assembly tactics, the main drawback associated with current assemblies is the weak interparticle connections limited by their assembling protocols. Herein, we report a novel boron doping-induced interconnection-assembly approach for fabricating an unprecedented assembly of mesoporous silicon oxycarbide nanospheres, which are derived from periodic mesoporous organosilicas. The as-prepared architecture is composed of interconnected, strongly coupled nanospheres with coarse surfaces. Significantly, through delicate analysis of the as-formed boron doped species, a novel melt-etching and nucleation-growth mechanism is proposed, which offers a new horizon for the developing interconnected assembling technique. Furthermore, such unique strategy shows precise controllability and versatility, endowing the architecture with tunable interconnection size, surface roughness and switchable primary nanoparticles. Impressively, this interconnected assembly along with tunable surface roughness enables intrinsically dual (both structural and interfacial) stable characteristics, achieving extraordinary long-term cycle life when used as a lithium-ion battery anode.

Keywords: boron doping; energy storage; interconnected assembly; mesoporous materials.