Tunable Ordered Nanostructured a-Fe₂O₃ Lithium Battery Anodes by Nanocasting Technique Using SBA-15 Hard Silica Templates

摘要

Nanostructured -Fe2O3 have been obtained through a nanocasting strategy using different SBA-15mesoporous silicas as hard templates. In order to tune the micro/mesoporous structure of the resulting-Fe2O3 nanostructures, SBA-15 silica templates with different textural features were prepared byvarying the temperature at which their synthesis was carried out. X-Ray powder diffraction,transmission electron microscopy and N2 physisorption at 77 K techniques were employed for thestructural-morphological characterization of the synthesized materials. Cyclic voltammetry andgalvanostatic discharge/charge cycling tests were carried out to assess the electrochemical behaviourof the nanostructured -Fe2O3 as a promising anode material for Li-ion cells. This work demonstratedthat the structural-morphological features change accordingly to the different templates used and acareful control of the texture/particle characteristics is likely a fundamental variable which noticeablyaffects the cycling behaviour of the samples.