EDTA-Na2-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of Cu2SnS3 hollow microspheres and their lithium ion storage performances

• CTS-HMSs were synthesized by an EDTA-Na2-assisted hydrothermal method.
• The microspheres display attractive hollow structures with porous feature on the surface.
• The as-prepared CTS-HMSs exhibited a high initial storage capacity.

In this paper, the Cu2SnS3 hollow microspheres (CTS-HMSs) have been successfully synthesized via a hydrothermal route, in which ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (EDTA-Na2) is introduced as both a chelating agent and a template. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicate that EDTA-Na2 plays crucial roles in determining the phase of Cu2SnS3 products, and the morphological characterizations show that the shell thickness of hollow microspheres is about 0.2 μm and the outer diameter is in the range of 1.0–1.2 μm. In particular, charge–discharge performance and cycle performance for the novel CTS-HMS materials in lithium-ion batteries are preliminarily investigated, and the unique electrode material exhibits a high initial lithium ion storage capacity of 1316 mA h g− 1, suggesting a promising electrode material for lithium ion batteries.