Facile preparation of MnO/nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanotubes composites and their application in energy storage

Abstract We report a novel approach to prepare MnO/nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanotubes composites by using a hypercrosslinked tubular porous polymer precursor, which is obtained by a facile strategy of Friedel-Crafts reaction of triphenylamine and formaldehyde dimethyl acetal promoted by ferric trichloride. Owing to the high redox activity of the loaded MnO with uniform distribution on the nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanotubes surface, the enhanced surface area, and the plentiful porous structures of the one dimensional nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanotubes, the lithium-ion batteries fabricated from the MnO/nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanotubes composites exhibit a high electrochemical performance, including a reversible capacity of 652 mAh g −1  at 100 mA g −1 and an excellent cycling stability with a capacity retention of 512 mAh g −1  at 500 mA g −1 after 250 charge−discharge cycles. The result demonstrates that this kind of MnO/nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanotubes composites are promising candidates for high performance energy storage devices.