Hierarchical assembly of ZnO nanowire trunks decorated with ZnO nanosheets for lithium ion battery anodes

Dongheun Kim; Sun Hae Ra Shin; Yeonhoo Kim; Kenneth Crossley; Yerim Kim; Hyungkyu Han; Jinkyoung Yoo

doi:10.1039/d0ra00372g

Hierarchical assembly of ZnO nanowire trunks decorated with ZnO nanosheets for lithium ion battery anodes

RSC Adv. 2020 Apr 3;10(23):13655-13661. doi: 10.1039/d0ra00372g. eCollection 2020 Apr 1.

Authors

Dongheun Kim¹, Sun Hae Ra Shin¹, Yeonhoo Kim¹, Kenneth Crossley¹, Yerim Kim¹, Hyungkyu Han¹, Jinkyoung Yoo¹

Affiliation

¹ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos NM 87545 USA hhan@pnnl.gov jyoo@lanl.gov.

Abstract

Hierarchical architectures composed of nanomaterials in different forms are essential to improve the performance of lithium-ion battery (LIB) anodes. Here, we systematically studied the effects of hierarchical ZnO nanostructures on the electrochemical performance of LIBs. ZnO nanowire (NW) trunks were decorated with ZnO NWs or ZnO nanosheets (NSs) by successive hydrothermal synthesis to create hierarchical three-dimensional nanostructures. The branched ZnO NSs on the ZnO NW trunk exhibited a two-fold higher specific gravimetric capacity compared to ZnO NWs and branched ZnO NWs on ZnO NW trunks after 100 cycles of charging-discharging at 0.2C (197.4 mA g^-1). The improvement in battery anode performance is attributable to the increased interfacial area between the electrodes and electrolyte, and the void space of the branched NSs that facilitates lithium ion transport and volume changes during cycling.