Two-step oxidation of bulk Sb to one-dimensional Sb2O4 submicron-tubes as advanced anode materials for lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries

•Submicron tube-like Sb2O4 is prepared by a facile two-step oxidation route.•Lithium/sodium storage behaviors are investigated to be conversion-alloying-type.•For LIBs, the tube-like Sb2O4 delivers a capacity of 700 mAh g−1 after 50 cycles.•For SIBs, the capacity of tube-like Sb2O4 can reach 381.9 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles.•The preparation method can motivate the preparation of other metal oxide materials.

Alloying-type Sb material has been considered as an excellent anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). However, the limitation of capacity is still a challenge urging to be solved. Thus, it will be extremely meaningful to exploit novel antimony oxides (Sb2O4) as high-capacity anode material for both LIBs and SIBs. In this work, one-dimensional tube-like Sb2O4 submicron-structures are fabricated by a two-step oxidation route, and their lithium and sodium storage behaviors are investigated to be conversion-alloying-type. When evaluated as an anode material with lithium as the counter electrode, the Sb2O4 submicron-structures deliver a discharge capacity of 700 mAh g−1 after 50 cycles at a current density of 100 mA g−1, which is higher than the alloying-type Sb anode materials with a theoretical capacity of 660 mAh g−1. Even at a high current density of 1000 mA g−1, the substantial discharge capacity can still reach 415 mAh g−1 after 100 repeated cycles. In addition, as for SIBs, the tube-like Sb2O4 submicron-structures can maintain a discharge capacity of 381.9 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles at 100 mA g−1, higher than the reported results at this field. Such excellent cycling stability and rate capability of the designed Sb2O4 submicron-structure can be attributed to the morphology and structure.

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