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

Herein, the well-designed hybrid materials composed of Fe2O3 nanoparticles embedded in hierarchical porous carbon matrix (HPCs/Fe2O3) 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 Fe2O3 nanoparticles, but also provides a large surface area and high electrical conductivity, resulting in significant improvement of electrochemical performance. HPCs/Fe2O3-2 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.