Carbon Dots‐Regulated Pomegranate‐Like Metal Oxide Composites: From Growth Mechanism to Lithium Storage
Yu Ye, Haoji Wang, Huaxin Liu, Yinger Xiang, Lu Liu, Wentao Deng, Guoqiang Zou, Youcai Liu, Hongshuai Hou, Xiaobo Ji
Abstract
Abstract Carbon dots (CDs) are considered as excellent structural regulator for metal oxides (MOs) due to their abundant functional groups, superior dispersibility, and ultrasmall size ( < 10 nm). Herein, a new approach is proposed to construct porous pomegranate‐like MOs/CDs composite based on the CDs‐induced in situ growth mechanism of ion adsorption–multipoint surface nucleation–crosslinking agglomeration. The proposed methodology is successfully applied to prepare SnO 2 /CDs, Cu 2 O/CDs, and Fe 2 O 3 /CDs composites, respectively, demonstrating its universality to metal oxides. Taking SnO 2 /CDs composite as a case study for anode material in lithium‐ion batteries, it exhibits high lithium storage capacity, excellent cycling stability, and a special feature of capacity increase upon cycling. This study provides a new idea for the design of metal oxides materials tuned by CDs and broadens the application of CDs in the field of material synthesis.