Facile synthesis of porous germanium-iron bimetal oxide nanowires as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries

Germanium-based oxide has been found to be a promising high-capacity anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, it exhibits poor electrochemical performance because of the drastic volume change during cycling. Herein, we designed porous Ge-Fe bimetal oxide nanowires (Ge-Fe-O-x-700 NWs) by a large-scale and facile solvothermal reaction. When used as the anode material for LIBs, these Ge-Fe-O-x-700 NWs exhibited superior electrochemical performance (similar to 1,120 mAh.g(-1) at a current density of 100 mA.g(-1)) and good cycling performance (similar to 750 mAh.g(-1) after 50 cycles at a current density of 100 mA.g(-1)). The improved performance is due to the small NW diameter, which allows for better accommodation of the drastic volume changes and zero-dimensional nanoparticles, which shorten the diffusion length of ions and electrons.