Electrospinning of GeO2–C fibers and electrochemical application in lithium-ion batteries

• Published in: Chinese chemical letters 2016-03, Vol.27 (3), p.412-416
• Main Authors: Yang, Qi, Sun, Tao, Yu, Jia-Yu, Ma, Jin-Xin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon; Composite fibers; C纤维; Electrchemical performance; Electrospin; GeO2; X射线光电子能谱; 化学应用; 扫描电子显微镜; 聚乙烯吡咯烷酮; 锂离子电池; 静电纺丝
• ISSN: 1001-8417; 1878-5964
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cclet.2015.12.025

GeO2–C fibers were successfully synthesized using electrospinning homogeneous sol and subsequent calcination in an inert atmosphere. The spinnable sol was prepared by adding polyacrylonitrile（PAN）and polyvinylpyrrolidone（PVP） in a weight ratio of 1：1 into a mixture with white precipitate produced by dropping GeCl4 into DMF. X-ray diffraction（XRD）, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）,thermogravimetric analysis（TGA）, scanning electron microscopy（SEM） and transmission electron microscopy（TEM） were employed to characterize the as-obtained fibers, and electrochemical tests were conducted to measure electrochemical performance of the electrode. The electrospun fibers have uniform diameters of 300 nm. After being calcined at 600 8C for 2 h in Ar, they transform to amorphous GeO2–C fibers with the same morphologies. The Ge O2–C fibers exhibit excellent cycling stability with a high reversible capacity of 838.93 m A h g^-1after 100 cycles at a current density of 50 m A g^-1, indicating the composite fibers could be promising anode candidates for lithium-ion batteries.