Sodium/Lithium Storage Behavior of Antimony Hollow Nanospheres for Rechargeable Batteries

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have come up as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for large-scale applications because of abundant Na storage in the earth's crust. Antimony (Sb) hollow nanospheres (HNSs) obtained by galvanic replacement were first applied as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries and exhibited superior electro-chemical performances with high reversible capacity of 622.2 mAh g(-1) at a current density of SO mA g(-1) after SO cycles, close to the theoretical capacity (660 mAh g(-1) ); even at high current density of 1600 mA g(-1) , the reversible capacities can also reach 315 mAh g(-1) . The benefits of this unique structure can also be extended to LIBs, resulting in reversible capacity of 627.3 mAh g(-1) at a current density of 100 mAh g(-1) after SO cycles, and at high current density of 1600 mA g(-1) , the reversible capacity is 435.6 mAhg(-1). Thus, these benefits from the Sb HNSs are able to provide a robust architecture for SIBs and LIBs anodes.