Facile mass production of porous SnO2 hollow nanospheres as high performance anode material in lithium-ion batteries

Porous SnO2 hollow microspheres were synthesized by a facile template-free chemical oxidation precipitation combining with an annealing process, with SnSO4 as precursor. The near monodispersed porous hollow nanospheres, composed of nanoparticles with size of about 5 nm, were 110-150 nm with wall thickness of about 50 nm. As anode material for lithium ion batteries, their initial reversible capacity reached 1082 mAh/g. The electrodes revealed a capacity of 226 mAh/g up to 60 cycles with high Coulombic efficiency. The features of good electrochemical performance and easy to mass production make the porous SnO2 hollow nanospheres potential candidate as high performance anode materials for practical application in lithium-ion batteries. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.