Generalized Domino-Driven Synthesis of Hollow Hybrid Carbon Spheres with Ultrafine Metal Nitrides/Oxides

Hollow hybrid spheres have been the focus of substantial efforts in areas of energy storage/conversion, especially those with carbon shells. However, current synthesis methods require complicated multistep procedures and show inadequate capability to anchor ultrafine particles with compositional complexity and controllable content, thus far restricting the potentials. Here, we report the preparation of hollow hybrid carbon spheres with encapsulated ultrafine metal nitrides/oxides by one-pot domino-driven synthesis, which involves micelle-interfacial copolymerization for shell formation and spontaneous copolymerization-induced oxometallate condensation inside micelles for encapsulation, followed by controlled pyrolysis. The synthetic platform shows remarkable generality and adjustability, enabling full access to multifarious particles with ultrafine size and tunable content. The reduced dimension of the vanadium nitride nanocluster encapsulated in a hollow carbon cavity facilitates surface-dominated potassium storage with superior capacity and high rate performance. The versatile synthesis and manipulation will expand the scope of hollow hybrid material for widespread applications.