One-pot solvothermal synthesis of fern leaf-like α-Fe2O3@C/graphene from ferrocene with enhanced lithium and sodium storage properties

Rational design and efficient synthesis method for electrode materials with improved functional morphologies are highly sought after in the development of rechargeable batteries. Herein, hierarchical fern leaf-like nanocomposites of alpha-Fe2O3@C connected by reduced graphene oxide (rGO), to form alpha-Fe2O3@C/rGO, have been prepared through a one-pot self-templated solvothermal method from ferrocene. A reasonable self-assembly process of the unique nanostructure is also proposed. During the in-situ formation, rGO content has a direct impact on the size of the fern leaf-like architectures, and also improves the electronic conductivity between adjacent fern leaf-like architectures. When used as anode materials for lithium-ion.batteries, alpha-Fe2O3@C/rGO nanocomposite exhibits excellent cycling performance at 200 mA g(-1), maintaining a discharge capacity of 971 mAh g(-1), after 100 cycles. Furthermore, when used as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries, it exhibits an encouragingly high reversible capacity of 720 mAh g(-1) at 50 mA g(-1) during the 2nd cycle. These results suggest the unique nanocomposite structure holds great promise for energy storage applications. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.