Facile fabrication of binder-free metallic tin nanoparticle/carbon nanofiber hybrid electrodes for lithium-ion batteries

Jia Wang, Wei Li Song, Zhenyu Wang, Li Zhen Fan*, Yuefei Zhang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

49 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this work, a Sn nanoparticle (NP)/carbon nanofiber (CNF) hybrid with unique structure has been designed and fabricated via electrospinning and subsequent heat treatment. The cell assembled by the binder-free Sn NP/CNF hybrid demonstrates an effective capacity (46 mAh g-1 at 200 mA g-1 after 200 cycles) with high coulombic efficiency (up to 99.8%), suggesting a facile strategy for the scalable fabrication of electrochemically stable electrodes for LIBs. For understanding the electrochemical behaviors of the metallic Sn and carbon nanofibers in the lithiation/delithiation process, in situ transmission electron microscopy was applied to study the single hybrid structure. In the first charge/discharge process, real-time size variation of the Sn NP and CNFs was mainly focused, suggesting a two-step lithiation process in the metallic Sn NP. Structural characterization also indicates an irreversible delithiation in a single Sn NP/CNF hybrid structure. The electrochemical performance based on influence of carbonization temperature has also been discussed. The results and fundamental understanding of the lithiation/delithiation in the Sn-based hybrid anodes enables the communities to design flexible high-performance electrodes based on metallic active materials in a rational way.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)468-475
Number of pages8
JournalElectrochimica Acta
Volume153
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Jan 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Lithium ion batteries
  • Tin
  • anodes
  • carbon nanofibers
  • composites

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