Sn-contained N-rich carbon nanowires for high-capacity and long-life lithium storage

•Sn-contained N-rich carbon nanowires are obtained via a facile procedure.•Our product is abundant in nitrogen.•Our product possesses the morphology of nanowires.•The encapsulation of Sn contributes to a higher capacity upon long cycles.•Our product delivers excellent cycling stability and high reversible capacity.

We report here for the first time Sn-contained N-rich carbon nanowires, which are prepared via a facile and scalable procedure using poly-pyrrole as the carbon source. As-obtained nanowires with a diameter of about 50 nm crosslink with each other with enough void space, beneficial to accommodating lithiation-induced volumetric change and mechanical stress. In particular, this product contains abundant nitrogen (9.8 wt.%), favorable for Li+ diffusion and storage. It therefore exhibits excellent cycling stability of 682.6 and 760.1 mAhg−1 at 500 mAg−1 after 200 and 600 cycles, respectively. It also delivers great high rate performance even at 10 Ag−1.

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