Engineering a hierarchical hollow hematite nanostructure for lithium storage

Abstract

In this paper, a new hierarchical hollow α-Fe₂O₃ nanostructure that has a nanosphere morphology of approximately 250 nm in diameter integrated with ensembles of 15 nm diameter nanotubes is designed and engineered through a simple, economical, and green chemical approach. As an anode material for Li-ion batteries, the engineered hierarchical hollow α-Fe₂O₃ nanostructure exhibits significantly improved Li storage capability and good cycling stability, with a reversible capacity of 965 mA h g⁻¹ that is retained beyond 200 cycles. Furthermore, this engineered nanostructure showed excellent rate performance superior to that of α-Fe₂O₃-based battery anodes reported previously.