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Multi-shelled metal oxides prepared via an anion-adsorption mechanism for lithium-ion batteries

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 16050 (2016) Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 11 May 2016

Abstract

One of the major problems in the development of lithium-ion batteries is the relatively low capacity of cathode materials compared to anode materials. Owing to its high theoretical capacity, vanadium oxide is widely considered as an attractive cathode candidate. However, the main hindrances for its application in batteries are its poor capacity retention and low rate capability. Here, we report the development of multi-shelled vanadium oxide hollow microspheres and their related electrochemical properties. In contrast to the conventional cation-adsorption process, in which the metal cations adsorb on negatively charged carbonaceous templates, our approach enables the adsorption of metal anions. We demonstrate controlled syntheses of several multi-shelled metal oxide hollow microspheres. In particular, the multi-shelled vanadium oxide hollow microspheres deliver a specific capacity of 447.9 and 402.4 mAh g−1 for the first and 100th cycle at 1,000 mA g−1, respectively. The significant performance improvement offers the potential to reduce the wide capacity gap often seen between the cathode and anode materials.

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Figure 1: Schematic of two synthesis routes of multi-shelled hollow microspheres.
Figure 2: Effects of synthesis conditions on the morphology of products.
Figure 3: Morphological and structural analysis of V2O5 products.
Figure 4: Electrochemical properties of as-prepared V2O5 products.
Figure 5: Evaluation of the capacity contributed by the capacitive-controlled behaviour.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51172235, 21203201, 51202248, 21201167, 51272165, 51372245, 51302266, 51472244, 51572261, 21401199, 51362024 and 21590795), National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 21325105) and Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (No. 160104817). This research was undertaken on the National Computation Infrastructure (NCI) in Canberra, Australia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 North 2nd Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing 100190, China

    Jiangyan Wang, Hongjie Tang, Lijuan Zhang, Quan Jin, Jian Qi, Dan Mao, Mei Yang, Guanghui Ma, Zhiguo Su & Dan Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China

    Jiangyan Wang

  3. Department of Physical Chemistry, School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30, Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China

    Hao Ren & Ranbo Yu

  4. Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Gold Coast Campus Griffith University, Queensland 4222, Australia

    Yun Wang, Porun Liu, Zhiyong Tang, Huijun Zhao & Dan Wang

  5. Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Environmental, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China

    Yu Zhang

  6. Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 8, 3rd South Street, Zhongguancun, Beijing 100190, China

    Yuren Wen & Lin Gu

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Contributions

D.W. and R.Y. proposed and guided the research project. J.W. and H.T. designed and performed the experiments. L.Z., Y.Wang and H.Z. did the modelling and calculations. D.W., R.Y., Y.Z. and J.W. analysed the experimental results and drafted the manuscript. Z.T. and H.Z. improved the writing of the manuscript. H.R., Q.J., J.Q., D.M., M.Y., P.L., Y.Wen, L.G., G.M. and Z.S. gave some helpful advice.

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Correspondence to Ranbo Yu, Yu Zhang or Dan Wang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–23, Supplementary Tables 1–7, Supplementary References. (PDF 3984 kb)

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Wang, J., Tang, H., Zhang, L. et al. Multi-shelled metal oxides prepared via an anion-adsorption mechanism for lithium-ion batteries. Nat Energy 1, 16050 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.50

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