Synthesis of a zinc ferrite effectively encapsulated by reduced graphene oxide composite anode material for high-rate lithium ion storage

Qingke Tan; Chao Wang; Yangdi Cao; Xuehua Liu; Haijie Cao; Guanglei Wu; Binghui Xu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.004

Synthesis of a zinc ferrite effectively encapsulated by reduced graphene oxide composite anode material for high-rate lithium ion storage

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 Nov 1:579:723-732. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.004. Epub 2020 Jul 5.

Authors

Qingke Tan¹, Chao Wang¹, Yangdi Cao¹, Xuehua Liu¹, Haijie Cao¹, Guanglei Wu¹, Binghui Xu²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Materials for Energy and Environment, State Key Laboratory of Bio-Fibers and Eco-Textiles, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China.
² Institute of Materials for Energy and Environment, State Key Laboratory of Bio-Fibers and Eco-Textiles, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China. Electronic address: xubinghuiqdu@qdu.edu.cn.

PMID: 32668358
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.07.004

Abstract

Effectively immobilizing nano-sized electrochemical active materials with a 3D porous framework constituted by conductive graphene sheets brings in enhanced lithium ion storage properties. Herein, a reduced graphene oxide (RGO) supported zinc ferrite (ZnFe₂O₄) composite anode material (ZnFe₂O₄/RGO) is fabricated by a simple and effective method. Firstly, redox reaction takes place between the oxygen-containing functional groups on few-layered graphene oxide (GO) sheets and controlled quantity of metallic Zn atoms. ZnO nanoparticles are in-situ nucleated and directly grow on GO sheets. Secondly, the GO sheets are completely reduced by abundant Fe atoms, and corresponding γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles are formed neighboring the ZnO nanoparticles. In this step, 3D porous RGO supporting framework are constructed with γ-Fe₂O₃@ZnO nanoparticles effectively encapsulated between the RGO layers. Finally, the well-designed γ-Fe₂O₃@ZnO/RGO intermediate product undergoes a thermal treatment to allow a solid-state reaction and obtains the ZnFe₂O₄/RGO composite. At a high current rate of 1.0 A·g^-1, the ZnFe₂O₄/RGO composite exhibits an inspiring reversible capacity of 1022 mAh·g^-1 for 500 consecutive cycles as anode material for lithium ion batteries. And the insight into the attractive lithium storage performance has been studied in this work.

Keywords: Graphene oxide; Lithium ion batteries; Reduced graphene oxide; Zinc ferrite.