Effective combination of Fe2O3 with hierarchical porous carbon for high-performance lithium storage

Herein, the well-designed hybrid materials composed of Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles embedded in hierarchical porous carbon matrix (HPCs/Fe 2 O 3 ) were prepared by a two-step approach, involving a salt template route followed by hydrothermal treatment. The hierarchical porous structure not only serves as a buffer matrix to alleviate the volume expansion of Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles, but also provides a large surface area and high electrical conductivity, resulting in significant improvement of electrochemical performance. HPCs/Fe 2 O 3 -2 anode delivers a high reversible capacity of 1357.60 mAh g −1 after 100 cycles at 0.2 A g −1 and an outstanding rate behavior. It also exhibits an excellent cycling-life stability of 472.3 mAh g −1 after 1000 cycles at a high current density of 5 A g −1 , suggesting its potential application in LIBs anode.