Nitrogen-Doped Porous Ag-C@Co3O4 Nanocomposite for Boosting Lithium Ion Batteries

In this work, nitrogen-doped Ag-based metal-organic gels (Ag-MOGs) are introduced for the first time in the field of lithium ion batteries (LIBs) with good electrochemical performances. As a novel approach of the nitrogen-doping method for LIBs, Ag-carbon (Ag-C) as the precursor is formed from Ag-MOGs and Co3O4 nanoparticles are prepared by different pyrolysis processes and maintain different particle sizes as the primary active materials. Co3O4 nanoparticles with smaller sizes (10-15 nm) covering the surface of Ag-C show good electrochemical performance because of the good conductivity of silver particles and the nitrogen doping of Ag-C. In particular, the composite shows a high rate capability of 516.4 mAh g(-1) (5 A g(-1)) and strong cycling stability of 1275.78 mAh g(-1) at the current density of 100 mA g(-1) even after 100 cycles.