In-plane structured Fe3O4/FeS composite loaded on reduced graphene oxide as a stabilized anode material for lithium-ion batteries

Fe3O4 is a promising anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Herein, a stabilized anode material of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has been prepared by introducing the electrode stabilizer FeS into Fe3O4 loaded on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) to form in-plane structured composite (Fe3O4/FeS/RGO). The XRD and XPS results showed that the Fe3O4/FeS/RGO composite was successfully obtained by facile annealing method. The Raman result illustrated that the RGO should be multi-layer graphene sheets. The TGA result showed that the content of RGO was closed to 19.2%. The SEM and TEM images indicated that Fe3O4 and FeS form polyhedral structure particles, and Fe3O4/FeS particles were loaded on RGO. Owing to the existing FeS, polyhedron Fe3O4/FeS with multi-, high-energy facets exposed can be formed to enhance the over-all reactivity, capacity, cycle stability and rate performance of anode, while RGO serves as a host surface to load polyhedron Fe3O4/FeS and additive to increase the conductivity. The as-prepared Fe3O4/FeS/RGO composite exhibits high cycle stability (675.5 mA h g−1 after 300 cycles at 500 mA g−1) and excellent rate performance (472.5 mA h g−1 at 1000 mA g−1) without adding any conductive agent as an anode of LIBs. Our work provides a building block for LIBs’ system.