Sodium/lithium storage behavior of antimony hollow nanospheres for rechargeable batteries

Abstract

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have come up as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for large-scale applications because of abundant Na storage in the earth's crust. Antimony (Sb) hollow nanospheres (HNSs) obtained by galvanic replacement were first applied as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries and exhibited superior electrochemical performances with high reversible capacity of 622.2 mAh g^-1 at a current density of 50 mA g^-1 after 50 cycles, close to the theoretical capacity (660 mAh g^-1); even at high current density of 1600 mA g^-1, the reversible capacities can also reach 315 mAh g^-1. The benefits of this unique structure can also be extended to LIBs, resulting in reversible capacity of 627.3 mAh g^-1 at a current density of 100 mAh g^-1 after 50 cycles, and at high current density of 1600 mA g^-1, the reversible capacity is 435.6 mAhg^-1. Thus, these benefits from the Sb HNSs are able to provide a robust architecture for SIBs and LIBs anodes.