A case study on fibrous porous SnO2 anode for robust, high-capacity lithium-ion batteries

• Published in: Nano energy 2014-11, Vol.10, p.53-62
• Main Authors: Hwang, Soo Min, Lim, Young-Geun, Kim, Jae-Geun, Heo, Yoon-Uk, Lim, Jun Hyung, Yamauchi, Yusuke, Park, Min-Sik, Kim, Young-Jun, Dou, Shi Xue, Kim, Jung Ho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Catalytic methods; Chemical synthesis methods; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering; Electrospinning; Exact sciences and technology; Fibres; Hierarchical; Lithium-ion battery; Materials; Materials science; Methods of nanofabrication; Nanocrystalline materials; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Physics; Porous structure; SnO2
• ISSN: 2211-2855
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2014.08.020

Transition metal oxides have attracted considerable interest as promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to their high energy densities. It is necessary, however, to resolve the foremost issue for them in terms of practical applications, relating to the large volume changes during cell operation. Herein, we report a SnO2 anode with a hierarchical fibrous porous architecture which was fabricated by electrospinning the Sn-precursor with poly(vinylpyrrolidone) and subsequent temperature-dependent pyrolysis processes, resulting in the distinctive morphology, featuring hierarchical fibrous porous structures on the microscale with numerous primary constituent nanoparticles. The porous fibres are composed of uniform polycrystalline nanoparticles (approximately 10–50nm in size) and abundant voids in close proximity to the constituent nanoparticles. By comparing with an anode containing commercial SnO2 nanopowder (with a size of