Facile synthesis of nanostructured carbon nanotube/iron oxide hybrids for lithium-ion battery anodes

Nanostructured carbon nanotubes/iron oxide hybrids (CNIOHs) were synthesized by a scalable Bake-Break-Mix process which involves three simple steps. Porous rod-like iron oxide arrays were first synthesized via the decomposition of iron(II) oxalate dihydrate at 300°C for 5 h. The prepared rod-like structures were simply a well-organized alignment of numerous iron oxide nanoparticles. Breaking these rod-shaped iron oxide arrays into well-dispersed nanoparticles was accomplished by ultrasonication. Finally, single-wall carbon nanotubes were added to the suspension during sonication which allowed the dispersed iron oxide nanoparticles to adsorb to the surface resulting in the nanostructured CNIOHs. CNIOHs were employed as anode materials and showed excellent capacity, cyclic stability and rate capability.