Ultrathin SnO2 nanosheets anchored on graphene with improved electrochemical kinetics for reversible lithium and sodium storage

SnO2 is regarded to be promising for both Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. Thus, it is imperative to fabricate SnO2-based anode with improved lithiation reaction kinetics using simple but effective method. Herein, we develop a one-pot hydrothermal route to fabricate two-dimensional SnO2 nanosheets and the graphene supported SnO2 nanosheet composite with decreased SnO2 nanosheet of about 5–10 nm. The ultrathin nanosheet structure anchored on graphene supporting can effectively accelerate the conversion/alloying reaction. Electrochemical researches demonstrate that the reaction kinetics of the lithiation/delithiation reaction can be significantly enhanced by the graphene supported SnO2 nanosheets. As a result, a capacity of 817.2 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles in the potential window of 0.01 to 3 V are achieved at 500 mA g−1. The full cell performance and the sodium storage performance are both demonstrated to be good. These promising results suggest that such strategy to fabricate two-dimensional SnO2-based anode is of great interest for next-generation Li-ion and Na-ion batteries.