Hollow metal organic frameworks-derived porous ZnO/C nanocages as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries

In the contemporary era, energy demands are ever-growing and a significant number of people are concerned about environmental pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Therefore, it is a striking problem for the researchers to pursue renewable energy and sustainable energy to deal with the environmental and energy crisis. In this work, a novel hybrid hollow porous ZnO/C nanocages with high specific surface areas of 256 m 2  g −1 and high carbon content in weight of about 50% used as anode materials for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) were synthesized by a one-step pyrolysis of hollow metal organic framework material MOF-5 as both precursor and self-sacrificing template under N 2 atmosphere. The hollow porous ZnO/C nanocages released an initial discharge capacity of 1928 mA h g −1 at the current density of 100 mA g −1 and remained a high reversible capacity of 750 mA h g −1 after 100 cycles. According to the results of electrochemical measurements, the hollow porous ZnO/C nanocages also showed a good rate capability of 351 mA h g −1 at a relative large current density of 2 A g −1 . The excellent electrochemical performance was mainly due to the special nanostructures of the fabricated materials. Hence, the as-resulted hollow porous ZnO/C nanocages are promising anode materials for LIBs.