Advanced Materials Letters

Volume 9, Issue 12, Pages 880-884, December 2018

About Cover

Researcher of the Year 2018 - Professor T. Venkatesan. The advanced materials community would like to take this opportunity to pay rich tributes to Professor T. Venkatesan for his pioneering research and notable contributions to nanoscience and nanotechnology. Advanced Materials Letters have been selected his photo for the cover of this special year-end issue.

ZnSn(OH)₆ nanocubes as a high-performance anode for lithium-ion batteries

Qian Yang¹, Zhibin Wu^{2, 3}*, Zhijian Wang¹, Wei Liu¹, Jianwen Liu¹, Chuanqi Feng¹, Wei Sun⁴, Haimin Zhao⁴, Zaiping Guo^{1, 2, 3}

¹Hubei Collaborative Innovation Centre for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials and Ministry-of-Education Key Laboratory for Synthesis and Applications of Organic Functional Molecules, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China

²School of Mechanical, Materials & Mechatronics Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2500, Australia

³Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia

⁴Tianneng Battery Group  Co.  Ltd, 18 Baoqiao Road,  Huaxi  Industrial  Functional Zone, Changxing, Zhejiang, 313100, China

Adv. Mater. Lett., 2018, 9 (12), pp 880-884

DOI: 10.5185/amlett.2018.2143

Publication Date (Web): Sep 14, 2018

Copyright © 2018 VBRI Press

E-mail: zguo@uow.edu.au

Abstract

Single-phase bi-metal oxides and sulfides have attracted considerable research interest recently for battery application because of their outstanding electrochemical properties, but there are few reports on single-phase bi-metal hydroxides in battery research. Herein, we pioneer the electrochemical study of ZnSn(OH)₆ nanocubes for lithium-ion battery application. The ZnSn(OH)₆ nanocubes, synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method, can deliver a favorable specific discharge capacity of 599.3 mA h g^-1 at 500 mA g^-1 after 200 cycles and maintain good rate capability even at 2 A g^-1. The excellent electrochemical performance of these ZnSn(OH)₆ nanocubes can be attributed to the synergetic Li storage capability of Zn and Sn elements with diverse electrochemical reactions, the small uniform nanocubes (30−50 nm) that alleviate the pulverization and cracking of the electrode and shorten electron/ion transport paths, and the good mechanical properties of ZnSn(OH)₆, which facilitate maintenance of the structural integrity of the electrode during the Li⁺ extraction/insertion process. Therefore, with these outstanding advantages, the ZnSn(OH)₆ nanocubes could be one of the most promising anodes for advanced lithium-ion batteries.

Keywords

ZnSn(OH)₆, bi-metal hydroxides, lithium-ion batteries, anode.