Tin Oxide/Graphene Aerogel Nanocomposites Building Superior Rate Capability for Lithium Ion Batteries

SnO2 has attracted intense interest for use as an anode material for lithium ion batteries because of various advantages of the high theoretical capacity and low-cost. Unfortunately, SnO2 anode material suffers from the huge volume change and poor electrical conductivity. In order to address these problems, in this work, SnO2/graphene aerogel composites have been successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal approach. 3-4 nm-sized SnO2 nanoparticles are uniformly dispersed over graphene aerogels. Our results indicate that the hydrothermal reaction time highly affects the electrode performance of the anodes. The nanocomposite electrode with reaction time of 3 h shows increased electrochemical performance with high energy capacity, long cycle life, and superior rate capability. After 100 cycles, it can deliver a high discharge capacity of 662 mAh g(-1) at 100 mA g(-1). At 500 mA g(-1), it can still yield a discharge capacity of 619.7 mAh g(-1) after 723 cycles. The performance improvement can attribute to the graphene aerogel, which can suppress the aggregation of SnO2 nanoparticles, enhance the conductivity of SnO2, and increase their structural stability during cycling. This study strongly demonstrates that the SnO2/graphene aerogel composite is a promising anode material building high performance lithium ion batteries. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.