Fe-Doped Zinc Oxide Rods Coated with Nanometer-Thick N-Doped Carbon for Lithium-Ion Storage

Lithium-ion batteries have achieved great improvement in the past decades, while high-performance anode materials are still challenging. Metal doping, vacancy generation, and carbon coating have been proven to be efficient in improving the electrochemical performance of anode materials. Herein, rod-like zinc oxide nanostructure with Fe-doping, oxygen vacancies, and nanometer-thick nitrogen-doped carbon coating (Fe-ZnO1–x/NC) was synthesized via solvothermal and calcination process in an Ar/H2 atmosphere. As an anode material, the enhanced Li+ storage performance of Fe-ZnO1–x/NC rods was demonstrated due to the accumulated advantages of the Fe-doping, nanosized structure and oxygen vacancies within ZnO, and the N-doped carbon layer on the surface, which can improve the conductivity and alleviate the large volume expansion of the electrode material during the Li+ intercalation and deintercalation process. At 300 mA g–1, a stable specific capacity of 497.8 mAh g–1 after 500 cycles was displayed for Fe-ZnO1–x/NC. The rate capacity of 787.2 mAh g–1 was maintained when the current density was returned to 50 mA g–1. This work provides an efficient design strategy for high-quality electrode materials.