Synthesis and performance of cerium oxide as anode materials for lithium ion batteries by a chemical precipitation method

•Chemical precipitation method was employed for the synthesis of cerium oxide.•Alcohol has obvious effection on the growth of the final sample.•The rhombus CeO2 showed the better electrochemical properties as anode of lithium ion batteries.

In this present work, chemical precipitation method was employed for preparing cerium oxide. XRD, SEM, TEM, TGA/DTA and BET were used to investigate the structure, shape and formation mechanism, respectively. No impurities were detected. It was found that alcohol had obvious effection on the growth of the final sample. The shape of the precursor was retained after calcined at 500 °C. This result led to the possibility of an easy scale up to a commercial process. EIS and charge–discharge tests were carried out by using the as-prepared CeO2 as an anode material for lithium ion batteries. Specially, the initial discharge specific capacity of the rhombus CeO2 was about 529 mAh g−1 and stabilized reversibly at about 374 mAh g−1 after 50 cycles. It showed a promising usage as anode materials in lithium ion battery.