A metal-organic framework approach to engineer ZnO/Co3ZnC/N-doped carbon composite as anode material for boosting lithium storage

Conventional commercial lithium-ion battery (LIBs) anode materials are being proven hard to meet the demands of the modern advanced energy market due to their disadvantages, such as limited rate capability and theoretical capacity. Elaborate design of novel anode materials with higher energy storage properties has become a major focus of research recently. In this work, a N-doped carbon ZnO/Co3ZnC (named as ZnO/Co3ZnC) composite is facilely fabricated employing metal-organic framework (MOF) as a sacrificial tem-plate. In addition to the formation of N-doped carbon frameworks, the introduction of oxygen vacancies (O-V) as well as the unique and stable structure are also conducive to boosting lithium storage properties. As expected, the ZnO/CO3ZnC based anode for LIBs displayed remarkable lithium storage properties, such as the specific capacity as high as 1162.4 mAh g(-1) (after 300 cycles under 0.2 A g(-1)) and excellent high-rate performance (similar to 533.8 and 473.3 mAh g(-1) under 0.5 and 1 A g(-1), respectively.) Consequently, this study reinforces the beneficial role of above-mentioned characteristics to render ZnO/Co3ZnC an appealing anode material for LIBs. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, a N-doped carbon ZnO/Co3ZnC composite with excellent lithium storage properties was fabricated using a metal-organic framework as a sacrificial template. The introduction of N-doped carbon frameworks, oxygen vacancies, and the unique structure contributed to the remarkable lithium storage performance of the ZnO/Co3ZnC anode for LIBs.