Synthesis of a Zinc Ferrite Effectively Encapsulated by Reduced Graphene Oxide Composite Anode Material for High-Rate Lithium ion Storage

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.