Hierarchically porous carbon architectures embedded with hollow nanocapsules for high-performance lithium storage

Abstract

One of the great challenges in the development of lithium ion batteries (LIBs) is to achieve the design and synthesis of electrode materials with a large capacity and a high rate capability. Here, we report a novel hierarchical pore architecture material composed of a micro-sized porous carbon sphere matrix embedded with hollow nanocapsules (HNs-HPCS) as a promising anode material for large capacity and ultra-high rate capability in LIBs. Such a hierarchical porous structure delivers a very high capacity of 805 mA h g⁻¹ at a current density of 0.1 A g⁻¹, and the capacity of ca. 210 mA h g⁻¹ can be kept at 20 A g⁻¹ (ca. 38 s to fully charge). We believe that the hollow nanocapsules embedded within the carbon interior would store large amounts of Li ions, while hierarchical pores are favorable for the fast transportation of Li ions in the electrolyte to a great degree, and thus mean that the micro-sized material has great potential for the fabrication of high-performance LIBs.