Nano Sn-SnO embedded in multichannel hollow carbon nanofibers: Microstructure, reversible lithium storage property and mechanism

To ameliorate the lithium storage property of tin-based oxides, nano Sn-SnOx embedded in multichannel hollow carbon nanofibers (Sn-SnOx@MCNF) were identified in this work. Multichannel hollow carbon nanofibers embedded uniformly by amorphous SnOx and proper Sn nanocrystals with various valence states of Sn endowed Sn-SnOx@MCNF quick ion transfer rate, enough catalytic active sites, high structure stability, little agglomeration and superior buffering volume change during alloying/dealloying processes. Accordingly, Sn-SnOx@MCNF-based electrodes possessed predominant reversibility, large capacity and excellent rate capability during the process of lithium intercalation of SnOx to Li2O and LixSn. When applied in practice, the present Sn-SnOx@MCNF-based electrodes expressed a high reversible capacity of 669.2 mAh g−1 even after 600 cycles at 1.0 A g−1 and a high-rate capacity of 525.1 mAh g−1 at 4.0 A g−1. Sn-SnOx@MCNF will be a potential anode material for Li-ion batteries with superior Li-storage performance. The synergistic enhancement mechanism between MCNF and nano Sn-SnOx was proposed in detail.