title: In Situ Integration of Anisotropic SnO₂ Heterostructures inside Three-Dimensional Graphene Aerogel for Enhanced Lithium Storage.
abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) graphene aerogel (GA) has emerged as an outstanding support for metal oxides to enhance the overall energy-storage performance of the resulting hybrid materials. In the current stage of the studies, metals/metal oxides inside GA are in uncrafted geometries. Introducing structure-controlled metal oxides into GA may further push electrochemical properties of metal oxide-GA hybrids. Using rutile SnO2 as an example, we demonstrated here a facile hydrothermal strategy combined with a preconditioning technique named vacuum-assisted impregnation for in situ construction of controlled anisotropic SnO2 heterostructures inside GA. The obtained hybrid material was fully characterized in detail, and its formation mechanism was investigated by monitoring the phase-transformation process. Rational integration of the two advanced structures, anisotropic SnO2 and 3D GA, synergistically led to enhanced lithium-storage properties (1176 mAh/g for the first cycle and 872 mAh/g for the 50th cycle at 100 mA/g) as compared with its two counterparts, namely, rough nanoparticles@3D GA and anisotropic SnO2@2D graphene sheets (618 and 751 mAh/g for the 50th cycle at 100 mA/g, respectively). It was also well-demonstrated that this hybrid material was capable of delivering high specific capacity at rapid charge/discharge cycles (1044 mAh/g at 100 mA/g, 847 mAh/g at 200 mA/g, 698 mAh/g at 500 mA/g, and 584 mAh/g at 1000 mA/g). The in situ integration strategy along with vacuum-assisted impregnation technique presented here shows great potential as a versatile tool for accessing a variety of sophisticated smart structures in the form of anisotropic metals/metal oxides within 3D GA toward useful applications.
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University , 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore.
authors.forename: Guilue
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University , 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore.
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.
authors.forename: Chung Yen
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Ang
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.
authors.forename: Zhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.
authors.forename: Kim Truc
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.
authors.forename: Pei-Zhou
authors.initials: PZ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University , 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore.
authors.forename: Qingyu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore.|School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University , 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore.
authors.forename: Yanli
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
keywords: anisotropic SnO2 heterostructures; in situ integration; lithium-ion battery; three-dimensional graphene aerogel; vacuum-assisted impregnation