Control Growth of Mesoporous Nickel Tungstate Nanofiber and Its Application as Anode Material for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract Achieving a control over the growth of one-dimensional nanomaterial is significant for the study of energy storage material and device. In the present work, nickel tungstate (NiWO 4 ) nanofiber was synthesized by electrospinning technique combined with subsequent annealing treatment. The obtained NiWO 4 nanofiber is found to be highly crystalline and possesses a diameter of about 180 nm and a length of several millimeters. The influence of severe-annealing treatment on the structure and the electrochemical performance is studied and found that the temperature of annealing is a crucial factor in the crystalline phase, purity, structure and morphology. The impurities in the product of electrospinning disappeared, when the annealing temperature is raised from 650 to 670 °C, and a pure phase of mesoporous NiWO 4 nanofiber is obtained. However, for the temperature raising from 670 to 700 °C, the crystalline grains of the nanofiber grew and merged rapidly, as the mesoporous structure is disappeared. The lithium-ion battery furnished by the NiWO 4 nanofiber annealed at 700 °C as anode material, shows a moderate performance, while the battery provided by NiWO 4 nanofiber annealed at 670 °C exhibits an excellent lithium storage performance with high initial coulombic efficiency, high specific capacity, good cycle performance and rate performance. The initial coulombic efficiency could reach as high as 77.1%. A high reversible capacity of 514 mAh g −1 at a current density of 100 mA g −1 is achieved after 100 charge/discharge cycles, which indicated that NiWO 4 nanofiber was a promising candidate anode material for lithium ion battery.