Co3O4 nanoparticles anchored on stable Na2Ti2O5 nanobelts for improved lithium storage

Co3O4, which is one of the many promising alternative candidates, promises a high capacity anode material. However, it suffers from large volume variation and slow reaction kinetics during the cycle. Herein, we demonstrate a facile, efficient method to tailor the structure of Co3O4 whereby improving its electrochemical performance significantly. The Co3O4 is tailored to ultrasmall 0D nanoparticles to anchor on the surface of 2D Na2Ti2O5 nanobelts (NTO) through a simple method. The established 0D/2D heterostructure interface provides a guarantee for structure durability and reaction kinetics of the entire NTO@Co3O4 composite anode during cycle. As expected, the results demonstrate that the NTO@Co3O4 exhibits improved performance over both NTO and Co3O4, revealing 927.2 mA h g-1 after 150 cycles at 200 mA g-1 and 782.5 mA h g-1 after 250 cycles at 1000 mA g-1. Besides simple preparation, the overall performance of NTO@Co3O4 is superior to those of other re-ported Co3O4-based two-transition metal oxide nanocomposites, therefore demonstrating the significance of this work.