Development of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with high power and energy density considerably depend on the improvement of electrode materials. Nanostructured materials can provide multiple advantages, such as accelerating the Li ion diffusion, improving the compatibility between electrolyte and electrode materials. However, volume expansion and aggregation during the cycling process commonly result in rapid fading of capacities for these materials. At present, the study on high-rate and long-cycling electrode materials has attracted great interest in energy field.

Prof. GUAN Lunhui and his colleagues at the State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter(FJIRSM), explored new electrode materials by using wet chemical methods based on various carbon carriers such as carbon nanotubes, carbon nanohorns and graphene sheets.

They obtained carbon-based metal oxide composites and investigated their electrochemical properties. Recently, a composite of SnO2/Fc@SWNTs with large capacities of 900 mAh/g was obtained (Chem. Comm. 2011, 47, 5238); the anodes based on carbon nanohorn carrier exhibited superior Li-batteries performance with large reversible capacity, excellent cyclic performance, and good rate capability (Chem. Comm. 2011, 47, 7416； RSC ADV.DOI: 10.1039/C1RA00267H). Furthermore, nanoflake MnO2/MWNT composite prepared via asimple redox reaction was firstly used as cathode materials for Li-air batteries (Electrochem. Comm. 2011, 13, 698).

In addition, Prof.Guan’s group has also built the composites of Pt-based core-shell nanoparticles (<5 nm) well dispersed on the surface of single-walled carbon nanotubes. As a novel electrode in fuel cells, the anodic peak current density of the nanocomposite is 8.0 times higher than that of Pt/C for ethanol oxidation. This may be helpful for the design and synthesis of more active catalysts to meet our future energy requirements. Those results above have been issued in Energy & Environmental Science (DOI: 10.1039/c1ee02044g).

Schematic diagrams illustrating the fabrication of metal oxides nanoparticles loaded on the buffer carrier of ferrocene-encapsulated single-walled carbon nanotubes (Fc@SWCNTs).