A new hybrid strategy for fabricating titanium dioxide/tin dioxide/carbon composites with outstanding lithium-ion storage

An ideal hybrid mode for titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) and tin dioxide (SnO 2 ) is that the SnO 2 nanoparticles locate in interspaces of 3-deminsional TiO 2 hierarchical structure constructed by one-dimensional units, in which the sizes of interspaces can be adjusted via the inverse movement among the units to smartly accommodate the huge expansion/contraction of SnO 2 anode during long-term cycling process, but its achievement is full of challenges. Herein, a smart strategy has been proposed to facilely fabricate a TiO 2 /SnO 2 /Carbon (TiO 2 /SnO 2 /C) composite with a similar nanostructure with above ideal mode for the first time, which is composed of SnO 2 /C nanoparticles located in the interspaces among quasi-TiO 2 /C nanowires . Expectedly, the as-fabricated TiO 2 /SnO 2 /C composite exhibits greatly improved lithium storage, delivering high capacities of 851.5 and 415 mAh g −1 after 400 and 700 cycles at 200 and even 1000 mA g −1 , respectively. This work may provide a new strategy for development of high performance SnO 2 -based composite anodes for lithium-ion batteries.