A free-standing, flexible and bendable lithium-ion anode materials with improved performance

Bendable, flexible and self-supported anode materials with excellent electrochemical properties have highly attractive for the high performance lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). We report a simple process to prepare a three dimension structure composed of carbon and SnO2 nanoparticles (CGN/SnO2). The non-woven cotton covered with conducting graphene is selected as a flexible and bendable skeleton. Ultrasmall SnO2 nanoparticles with a size of several nanometers uniformly anchor on both the graphene sheets and cotton fibers. The CGN/SnO2 composites exhibited a higher Li-battery performance than carbonized cotton/SnO2 (C/SnO2) and carbonized cotton covered by glucose/SnO2 (CG/SnO2). Especially, the CGN/SnO2 composites after bending 1000 times can maintain the same lithium storage property as before. Combining with this unique flexible, bendable structure, and the outstanding electrical and electrochemical performance, we demonstrate the great potential of CGN/SnO2 composites in high performance Li-ion battery field and the flexible, foldable and stretchable conductors application.