title: Green and facile fabrication of hollow porous MnO/C microspheres from microalgaes for lithium-ion batteries.
abstract: Hollow porous micro/nanostructures with high surface area and shell permeability have attracted tremendous attention. Particularly, the synthesis and structural tailoring of diverse hollow porous materials is regarded as a crucial step toward the realization of high-performance electrode materials, which has several advantages including a large contact area with electrolyte, a superior structural stability, and a short transport path for Li(+) ions. Meanwhile, owing to the inexpensive, abundant, environmentally benign, and renewable biological resources provided by nature, great efforts have been devoted to understand and practice the biotemplating technology, which has been considered as an effective strategy to achieve morphology-controllable materials with structural specialty, complexity, and related unique properties. Herein, we are inspired by the natural microalgae with its special features (easy availability, biological activity, and carbon sources) to develop a green and facile biotemplating method to fabricate monodisperse MnO/C microspheres for lithium-ion batteries. Due to the unique hollow porous structure in which MnO nanoparticles were tightly embedded into a porous carbon matrix and form a penetrative shell, MnO/C microspheres exhibited high reversible specific capacity of 700 mAh g(-1) at 0.1 A g(-1), excellent cycling stability with 94% capacity retention, and enhanced rate performance of 230 mAh g(-1) at 3 A g(-1). This green, sustainable, and economical strategy will extend the scope of biotemplating synthesis for exploring other functional materials in various structure-dependent applications such as catalysis, gas sensing, and energy storage.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Dou
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Xianghong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Rongjun
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Yongping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gan
authors.forename: Wenjun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Jiangping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.forename: Wenkui
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xinyong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tao
mesh_terms: D000042:Absorption; D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004566:Electrodes; D055772:Green Chemistry Technology; D007477:Ions / Q000737:chemistry; D008094:Lithium / Q000737:chemistry*; D017895:Manganese Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D058086:Microalgae / Q000378:metabolism*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D008863:Microspheres; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry; D010087:Oxides / Q000737:chemistry*; D010539:Permeability; D016062:Porosity; D013499:Surface Properties; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D007477:Ions; D017895:Manganese Compounds; D010087:Oxides; C027424:manganese oxide; D002244:Carbon; D008094:Lithium