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Transforming large-scale industrially produced carbon nanotubes to high-performance electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries

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Abstract

Large-scale industrial production of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) has recently become available, but there are relatively few reports of the investigation of these industrially produced bulk CNTs as potential electrode materials for electrochemical energy storage such as lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Here, we report our evaluation of the electrochemical performance of the industrially produced CNTs from one manufacturer and our utilization of a kinetically controlled, vapor diffusion synthesis method combined with in-situ carbothermal reduction to homogeneously grow nanocrystalline tin (Sn) particles (~200 nm) in the matrix of the CNTs, yielding a Sn@CNTs composite. After surface coating with a layer of carbon coating (3–4 nm), this composite was transformed to a surface-modified Sn@CNTs composite that exhibited much higher reversible capacity, initial Coulombic efficiency, and rate capacity than the pristine CNTs as anode materials for LIB.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science (Grant No. DE-SC0001009, to University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB’s) Center for Energy Efficient Materials, an Energy Frontiers Research Center, for the support of H-L. Zhang, and Grant No. DE-FG02-02ER46006 for support of D.E. Morse) and the U.S. Army Research Office (through contract no. W911NF-09-D-0001 to the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies). We gratefully acknowledge the use of facilities of UCSB’s Materials Research Laboratory (supported by the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Program of the National Science Foundation under Award No. DMR05-20415) and the California Nano-Systems Institute. We thank David Loren and Joseph Ventura of Bayer MaterialScience for the gift of the Baytubes CNTs to our laboratory at UCSB.

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  1. Center for Energy Efficient Materials and Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA

    Zhang-Li Hong & Daniel E. Morse

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  1. Zhang-Li Hong
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Correspondence to Zhang-Li Hong.

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Hong, ZL., Morse, D.E. Transforming large-scale industrially produced carbon nanotubes to high-performance electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Journal of Materials Research 27, 410–416 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2011.397

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