High Performance Bi-Metallic Manganese Cobalt Oxide/Carbon Nanotube Li-ion Battery Anodes

Metal oxide compounds are a promising category of materials for the Li-ion battery anode due to their high theoretical capacity and natural abundance, although acceptable capacity retention and cycle life has not yet been achieved. In this work, we significantly improve the cycle life of manganese oxide through simultaneous cobalt doping and impregnation with a low 10% mass loading of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The MnO/CNT anode was able to retain its capacity of ca. 550 mAh/g over 300 cycles at 400 mA/g. To the best of our knowledge, this is among the best cycle life data reported for any MnO/CNT based anode. The composite also shows excellent rate capability, still supplying 400 mAh/g at a current rate of 1600 mA/g.