Core-Shell α-Fe2O3@α-MoO3 Nanorods as Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes with Extremely High Capacity and Cyclability

alpha-Fe2O3 nanoparticles are uniformly coated on the surface of alpha-MoO3 nanorods through a two-step hydrothermal synthesis method. As the anode of a lithium-ion battery, alpha-Fe2O3@alpha-MoO3 core-shell nanorods exhibit extremely high lithium-storage performance. At a rate of 0.1 C (10 h per half cycle), the reversible capacity of alpha-Fe2O3@alpha-MoO3 core-shell nanorods is 1481 mAhg-(1) and a value of 1281 mAhg(-1) is retained after 50 cycles, which is much higher than that retained by bare alpha-MoO3 and alpha-Fe2O3 and higher than traditional theoretical results. Such a good performance can be attributed to the synergistic effect between alpha-Fe2O3 and alpha-MoO3, the small size effect, one-dimensional nanostructures, short paths for lithium diffusion, and interface spaces. Our results reveal that core-shell nanocomposites have potential applications as high-performance lithium-ion batteries.