In Situ Synthesis of 1D Mesoporous MnO@C Nanorods for High Performance Li-Ion Batteries

Transition metal oxides have been regarded as the most potential anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), because of their high theoretical capacity, abundant resource, and low cost. Nevertheless, poor conductivity and large volumetric expansion during the charge-discharge processes make it difficult for LIBs application. In this work, we have adopted an in situ carbon coating method to synthesize 1D mesoporous MnO@C nanorods, which effectively work out the above problems of LIBs. Meanwhile, the MnO@C-3 (the mixture is 40 mL of H2O in solvothermal reaction) anode exhibits excellent rate capability with the capacity retention of 90.3% at 2.0 A and prominent cycling stability at 5.0 A g(-1) with the discharge capacity of 1210.1 mAh g(-1) after 400 cycles. When assembled to a full cell with commercial LiFePO4 as cathode, the full cell represents 360.7 mAh g(-1) after 30 cycles (based on the anode), which displays a development potential for practical application.