A Simple Approach to Prepare Metal Oxides Supra-Structures for LIBs

A variety of materials have been investigated as potential electrode materials for LIBs. Electrodes including Fe, Co, Ni or Cu have more Lithium ion storage capacity (more than 600 mAh/g) comparing to graphite (about 372 mAh/g). Recently, much effort has been focused toward achieving 3-dimensional hollow spheres with high surface area and porous for better capacity performance. In this study a simple spray drying approach has been introduced to synthesize porous CuO and Co3O4 microspheres. The results revealed that uniform structures of the nanoparticles microspheres were achieved. Then their cyclic performance were analyzed and compared to their commercial counterparts. The porous CuO microspheres and Co3O4 microspheres exhibited high capacity retention (86.2% of the discharge capacity of the second cycle after 60 cycles) and (89.8% of the discharge capacity of the second cycle after 40 cycles) at a current density of 400 mA/g, respectively. The excellent electrochemical properties could be attributed to their unique porous structures. The electrochemical results showed that microspheric electrode materials are able to manifest superior electrochemical properties compared to their commercial counterparts.