Tin Selenide – Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Hybrid Anodes for High Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries

A simple dry physical grinding and solvent mixing approach was used to prepare tin selenide – multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) hybrid as an anode material for high performance lithium ion batteries (LIBs). The pure tin selenide and their composites with carbon black or graphene oxides were previously reported, however no other groups have reported tin selenide/MWCNT composite as anode materials for LIBs. The new hybrid had superior electrochemical cycling performance with higher reversible (lithiation) capacity of 882 to 651 mA hg⁻¹ over 50 cycles compared to pure tin selenide (602 to 58 mAhg⁻¹) or pure MWCNT (339 to 171 mAhg⁻¹) electrodes. The enhanced performance of the tin selenide/MWCNT hybrid was attributed to various factors including alleviation of volume change of tin selenide during lithiation/delithiation by nanoscale network of MWCNT which helped to preserve the electrical connectivity between active particles, reversible decomposition of tin selenide, lithiation/delithiation of MWCNTs and conductive electronic transport pathways provided by MWCNTs.