Fabrication of hollow carbonaceous nanospheres and their applications in lithium-ion batteries

This paper presents a facile method for preparing hollow carbonaceous nanospheres for use in advanced Li-ion batteries (LIBs). Core-shell-structured silica@resin/silica nanosphere composites were used as the starting material. Hollow carbon nanospheres with a high specific surface area, i.e., 1389 m(2) g(-1), and C/SIC composite nanospheres composed of 24.4 wt.% amorphous carbon and 75.6 wt.% cubic beta-SiC were obtained. Electrochemical measurements showed that the hollow carbon nanospheres delivered a reversible capacity of 553.5 mA h g(-1) after 100 cycles, which is higher than the theoretical capacity of graphite. A C/SiC composite nanosphere electrode gave a reversible capacity of 296 mA h g(-1) after 500 cycles. The results show that these nanospheres are promising candidates for use in LIB anodes.