Rational construction of well-defined hollow double shell SnO2/mesoporous carbon spheres heterostructure for supercapacitors

Abstract The selection of proper electrode materials and the design of rational structure are two efficient approaches to improve the electrochemical performance of supercapacitors. Carbonaceous materials have become an important choice of electrode materials due to their good electrical conductivity and accommodation for volume expansion of metal oxides. In this contribution, hollow double-shell structured H-SnO2/MesCHS (mesoporous carbon hollow spheres) heterostructure is successfully achieved by silica template and in-situ polymerization methods. The H-SnO2/MesCHS composites demonstrate a specific surface area of 747.7 m2 g-1 and an average pore size of ca. 4.9 nm in the mesoporous carbon shell, where the outer layer of mesoporous hollow carbon layer act as a buffer to confine the volume expansion of the inner hollow tin oxide sphere. As consequence, hollow double-shell H-SnO2/MesCHS heterostructure demonstrates an excellent electrochemical performance with a high specific capacitance of 470 F g-1, exceptional cycling stability (88.4% retention of capacitance over 4000 cycles) and outstanding coulombic efficiency of 86.5% at high current density of 20 A g−1. The work provides an alternative route for the preparation of spherical hollow heterostructures materials with tunable double shell architectures, which may potentially be used as electrode materials for high-performance of energy storage.