Diverse-shaped tin dioxide nanoparticles within a plastic waste-derived three-dimensional porous carbon framework for...

Tin dioxides (SnO₂) inserted into carbons to serve as anodes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are known to improve their cycling stability. However, studies on diverse-shaped SnO₂ nanoparticles within a porous carbon matrix for super stable lithium-ion storage are rare. Herein, a hollow carbon sphere/porous carbon flake (HCS/PCF) framework is fabricated through template carbonization of plastic waste. By changing the doping mechanism and tuning the loading content, nano SnO₂ spheres and cubes as well as bulk SnO₂ flakes and blocks are in-situ grown within the HCS/PCF. Then, the as-prepared hybrids with built-in various morphological SnO₂ nanoparticles serve as anodes towards advanced lithium-ion batteries. Notably, HCS/PCF embedded with nano SnO₂ spheres and cubes anodes possess superb long-term cycling stability (~0.048% and ~0.05% average capacitance decay per cycle at 1 A/g over 400 cycles) with high reversible specific capacities of 0.45 and 0.498 Ah/g after 1000 cycles at 5 A/g. The ultra-stabilized Li⁺ storage is attributed to the effective mitigation of nano SnO₂ spheres/cubes volume expansion, originating from the compact SnO₂ yolk-HCS/PCF shell construction. This study paves a general strategy for disposing of polymeric waste to produce SnO₂ core-carbon shell anodes for super stable lithium-ion storage.