Longan-Derived Biomass Carbon-Induced Cubic-Type Ferric Oxide Nanoparticles for Efficient Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are the most preferred alternatives to fossil fuels as energy providers, but further improvement of the overall performance is still desired to satisfy social requirements. In this work, ferric oxide nanoparticles encapsulated in biomass longan pulp-derived carbon are simply configurated, in which the longan pulp plays three main functions: (i) To ensure a nanorod-like structure when interacting with Fe3+; (ii) to construct a cubic phase of Fe2O3 by tuning the proper content of longan pulp; and (iii) to ensure good dispersion of Fe2O3 nanoparticles. As electrodes for LIBs, the novel composite shows a high initial discharge capacity of 1483.6 mAh g–1 at 0.1 A g–1 and maintains a capacity value of 626.6 mAh g–1 even at 1.0 A g–1 over 1000 cycles, which benefits from the synergistic effect between carbon nanorods and Fe2O3. The highly dispersed γ-phase cubic Fe2O3 nanoparticles anchoring on the carbon substrate can increase the contact between the electrolyte and active materials; meanwhile, the longan-derived carbon substrate can compensate for the unfavorable electrical conductivity of Fe2O3 and buffer the volume expansion in the cycling process. This study provides an effective technique to utilize extensive natural resources and simple synthesis procedures for the preparation of novel hybrid anode materials.