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Naturally abundant transition metal oxides with high theoretical capacity have attracted more attention than commercial graphite for use as anodes in lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion battery electrodes that exhibit excellent electrochemical performance can be efficiently achieved via three-dimensional (3D) architectures decorated with conductive polymers and carbon. As such, we developed 3D carbon-supported amorphous vanadium oxide microspheres and crystalline V2O3 microspheres via a facile solvothermal method. Both samples were assembled with ultrathin nanosheets, which consisted of uniformly distributed vanadium oxides and carbon. The formation processes were clearly revealed through a series of time-dependent experiments. These microspheres have numerous active reaction sites, high electronic conductivity, and excellent structural stability, which are all far superior to those of other lithium-ion battery anodes. More importantly, 95% of the second-cycle discharge capacity was retained after the amorphous microspheres were subjected to 7, 000 cycles at a high rate of 2, 000 mA/g. The crystalline microspheres also exhibited a high-rate and long-life performance, as evidenced by a 98% retention of the second-cycle discharge capacity after 9, 000 cycles at a rate of 2, 000 mA/g. Therefore, this facile solvothermal method as well as unique carbon-supported and nanosheet-assembled microspheres have significant potential for the synthesis of and use in, respectively, lithium-ion batteries.
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2013CB934103 and 2012CB933003), the International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (No. 2013DFA50840), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51302203 and 51272197), the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 51425204), the Hubei Province Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 2014CFA035), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. 2013-ZD-7, 2014-VII-007) and the Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (Nos. 2014-CL-A1-01 and 2015-CL-B1-23). We thank Prof. D. Y. Zhao of Fudan University for useful discussions and assistance with the manuscript.