Facile synthesis of SnO2-polypyrrole hybrid nanowires by cathodic electrodeposition and their application to Li-ion battery anodes

Abstract

SnO₂-polypyrrole hybrid nanowires are synthesized in a one-step process by a simple electrochemical method from an aqueous solution at room temperature. This novel and facile technique involves the rapid electropolymerization of pyrrole and the relatively slow chemical deposition of SnO₂, which leads to the incorporation of uniformly dispersed SnO₂ nanoparticles inside polypyrrole nanowires. Notably, the synthesized nanowires are directly deposited as a thin film on the substrate in a three-dimensional porous and interconnected network structure composed of numerous fine nanowires. This open architecture is highly desirable in energy storage devices because of its excellent mass transfer and high specific surface area, and therefore, the SnO₂-polypyrrole hybrid nanowires are evaluated for their use as high-performance anode materials in Li-ion batteries. Over 200 cycles, the hybrid nanowires show superior cyclic performance and a charge capacity higher than 0.307 mA h cm⁻², most likely because the polypyrrole matrix effectively prevents the agglomeration of the SnO₂ nanoparticles and elastically buffers the volumetric change in the nanoparticles that occurs during cycling.