Tuning Shell Numbers of Transition Metal Oxide Hollow Microspheres toward Durable and Superior Lithium Storage

Multishelled hollow structured transition metal oxides (TMOs) are highly potential materials for high energy density energy storage due to their high volumetric energy density, reduced aggregation of nanosized subunits, and excellent capacity and durability. However, traditional synthetic methods of TMOs generally require complicated steps and lack compositional/morphological adjustability. Herein, a general and straightforward strategy is developed to synthesize multishelled porous hollow microspheres, which is constituted of nanosize primary TMO particles, using metal acetate polysaccharide microspheres as the precursor. This universal method can be applied to design TMOs’ hollow spheres with tunable shell numbers and composition. The hierarchical porous quadruple-shelled hollow microspheres with nanosized Ni–Co–Mn oxide demonstrate an increased number of active sites, boosted rate capability, enhanced volumetric energy density, and showed great tolerance toward volume expansion upon cycling, thus exhibiting excellent Li + storage capability with high specific capacity (1470 mAh g –1 at 0.2 A g –1 and 1073.6 mAh g –1 at 5.0 A g –1 ) and excellent cycle retention (1097 mAh g –1 after 250 cycles at 0.2 A g –1 ) among TMO anode materials for lithium-ion batteries.