A facile hydrothermal route to iron(III) oxide with conductive additives as composite anode for lithium ion batteries

• Fe2O3 nanoparticles can be prepared via a facile hydrothermal route.
• Reduced graphite oxide and polymer have been introduced for composite materials.
• The conductive additives can enhance the electrochemical performances.
• Conductive additives may work in different way to improve the electrochemical performances.

We report a facile hydrothermal route for the synthesis of Fe2O3 nanoparticles and their composites with conductive additives, reduced graphite oxide (rGO) and conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS, as anode materials for lithium ion batteries (LIBs). The addition of conductive polymer layer on Fe2O3 nanoparticles may facilitate the electron transport but hinders the Li+ ion insertion at higher current density. On the other hand, Fe2O3@rGO prepared by growing Fe2O3 nanoparticles directly on rGO sheets shows the best electrochemical behavior due to a beneficial combination of the rGO nanosheets partially wrapped around Fe2O3 which facilitates both the electron transport and the Li+ ion insertion. The enhanced conductivity of the composites was proved. The high specific capacity and stable rate performance of Fe2O3@rGO composites encourages their further study to be potential candidate for the anode materials in LIBs. These results will be helpful in further elucidation of the role of conductive additives in improving the electrochemical performance of Fe2O3 based composite anodes and this simple synthetic strategy can be applied for the large scale production of metal oxides with conductive additives for LIBs.

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