Hierarchical porous SnO2/reduced graphene oxide composites for high-performance lithium-ion battery anodes

•Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was obtained by γ-ray radiation on GO dispersion.•Hierarchical porous SnO2 incorporated with rGO (HP-SnO2/rGO) was fabricated.•LIB using HP-SnO2/rGO as the anode exhibits superior cycle and rate performance.

The structure design of SnO2-based anode material is crucial for the development of high-performance lithium-ion batteries (LIB). Here, a solvent-evaporation induced codeposition of monodispersed polystyrene (PS) microspheres (241 nm) and γ-radiation reduced graphene oxide (rGO) at the presence of the surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), has been firstly conducted to prepare a self-stand PS/rGO composite template film, which can transform into a porous SnO2/rGO composite material after being infiltrated with the precursor of SnO2 and further calcinated at 420 °C. TGA, SEM, TEM, and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms analyses indicate that the prepared SnO2/rGO composite material has 52.1 wt% of rGO, and a hierarchical pore structure, i.e., mesopores (3.312 nm) and macropores (∼200 nm) coexist. The half-cell using the hierarchical porous structured SnO2/rGO composite as the electrode exhibits an excellent cycle performance (850 mAh g−1 in 100 cycles at a current density of 0.3C) and rate property of 436 mAh g−1 at a current density of 4.5C. This work indicates that the incorporation of graphene-based materials into hierarchical porous SnO2 matrix will be a potential way to obtain high-performance LIB anode material.

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