Carbon-coated mesoporous SnO2 nanospheres as anode material for lithium ion batteries

In this paper mesoporous SnO2 nanospheres with an average diameter of about 83 nm, composed of many tiny primary particles (∼10 nm) and holes, are synthesized on a large scale by a simple hydrothermal route. The as-prepared mesoporous SnO2 nanospheres were uniformly coated with carbon by a further hydrothermal treatment in glucose aqueous solution. As anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, the core-shell SnO2/C nanocomposites exhibit a markedly improved cycling performance.