In Situ Synthesis of 1D Mesoporous MnO@C Nanorods for High Performance Li-Ion Batteries

Transition metal oxides have been regarded as the most potential anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), because of their high theoretical capacity, abundant resource, and low cost. Nevertheless, poor conductivity and large volumetric expansion during the charge–discharge processes make it difficult for LIBs application. In this work, we have adopted an in situ carbon coating method to synthesize 1D mesoporous MnO@C nanorods, which effectively work out the above problems of LIBs. Meanwhile, the MnO@C-3 (the mixture is 40 mL of H 2 O in solvothermal reaction) anode exhibits excellent rate capability with the capacity retention of 90.3% at 2.0 A g –1 and prominent cycling stability at 5.0 A g –1 with the discharge capacity of 1210.1 mAh g –1 after 400 cycles. When assembled to a full cell with commercial LiFePO 4 as cathode, the full cell represents 360.7 mAh g –1 after 30 cycles (based on the anode), which displays a development potential for practical application.