Facile synthesis of graphene-supported shuttle- and urchin-like CuO for high and fast Li-ion storage

Graphene nanosheet (GNS) supported shuttle- and urchin-like CuO nanostructures are prepared by a facile low-temperature solution route. CuO nanoshuttles or urchin-like nanostructures are dispersed uniformly on GNS, forming a three dimensional CuO–GNS layer-by-layer network after stacking. When fabricated as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, CuO–GNS composites exhibit superior Li-ion storage properties in terms of high capacity, long cycle life, and excellent rate performance. At a large current of 700 mA/g, GNS-supported CuO nanoshuttles show a higher-than-theoretical capacity of 826 mAh/g after 100 cycles, which is even larger than the reversible capacity of 771 mAh/g achieved at 70 mA/g after 40 cycles.

► CuO nanostructures are prepared on graphene nanosheets at a low temperature.
► The morphologies of CuO are tuned to be shuttle-like or urchin-like.
► The CuO–graphene composites show superior lithium-ion storage properties.