A high-performance tin dioxide@carbon anode with a super high initial coulombic efficiency via a primary cell prelithiation process

Recently, many exciting achievements have been made in improving the cycling performance of SnO2-based electrode. However, the low initial Coulombic efficiency of SnO2-based electrode caused by the formation of solid electrolyte interphase and some of the irreversible formation of Li2O in SnO2 structure still remains unresolved. Here this work reports a primary-cell process to prelithiate the SnO2-based composites to compensate the irreversible loss during the first cycle. The primary-cell-prelithiated SnO2@C composites performs a high initial Coulombic efficiency from 92.7% to >100% with the prelithiation time extends. Even after 600 cycles, the prelithiated (24 h) SnO2@C composites show a high capacity retention of 95% (848 mAh g−1) at a current density of 0.5 A g−1.