Construction of oxygen vacancy-rich ZnO@carbon nanofiber aerogels as a free-standing anode for superior lithium storage

Mengjue Cao; Yi Feng; Duoying Wang; Yuming Xie; Xiaoli Gu; Jianfeng Yao

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.066

Construction of oxygen vacancy-rich ZnO@carbon nanofiber aerogels as a free-standing anode for superior lithium storage

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Aug 15:644:177-185. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.066. Epub 2023 Apr 20.

Authors

Mengjue Cao¹, Yi Feng¹, Duoying Wang¹, Yuming Xie¹, Xiaoli Gu¹, Jianfeng Yao²

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Co-Innovation Center of Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
² Jiangsu Co-Innovation Center of Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China. Electronic address: yaojianf@gmail.com.

PMID: 37105041
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.066

Abstract

The development of next-generation high-capacity freestanding materials as electrodes in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has significant potential. Here, oxygen vacancy-rich ZnO (O_v-ZnO) deposited on carbonized bacterial cellulose (CBC) aerogels is developed via in-situ uniformly growing ZIF-8-NH₂ particles on CBC aerogels, followed by the hydrazine reduction and pyrolysis. The CBC serves as a free-standing skeleton to disperse and support ZIF-8-NH₂ derived ZnO while the introduction of oxygen vacancies can effectively promote the internal ion/electron transfer. As a result, the obtained free-standing aerogels (O_v-ZnO@CBC) displays a reversible capacity of 710 mAh g^-1 at 1 A g^-1 after 1000 cycles, which is superior to ZnO@CBC without hydrazine reduction treatment. Furthermore, the assembled Li free-standing full cell using the O_v-ZnO@CBC composite as the anode and BC@LiFePO₄ (BC@LFP) as the cathode exhibits an outstanding cycling performance of 150 mAh g^-1 after 100 cycles at 0.1 A g^-1, displaying satisfactory lithium-ion storage capability. It is noteworthy that both O_v-ZnO@CBC and BC@LFP are obtained in the form of a free-standing aerogel. This work offers a strategy to prepare high-capacity and long-cycle self-supporting aerogel-based electrodes for flexible LIBs.

Keywords: Carbonized bacterial cellulose; Free-standing anode; Li-ion battery; Zinc oxide.