Engineering a hierarchical reduced graphene oxide and lignosulfonate derived carbon framework supported tin dioxide nanocomposite for lithium-ion storage.

Tin dioxide (SnO) is widely recognized as a high-performance anode material for lithium-ion batteries. To simultaneously achieve satisfactory electrochemical performances and lower manufacturing costs, engineering nano-sized SnO and further immobilizing SnO with supportive carbon frameworks via eco-friendly and cost-effective approaches are challenging tasks. In this work, biomass sodium lignosulfonate (LS-Na), stannous chloride (SnCl) and a small amount of few-layered graphene oxide (GO) are employed as raw materials to engineer a hierarchical carbon framework supported SnO nanocomposite. The spontaneous chelation reaction between LS-Na and SnCl under mild hydrothermal condition generates the corresponding SnCl@LS sample with a uniform distribution of Sn in the LS domains, and the SnCl@LS sample is further dispersed by GO sheets via a redox coprecipitation reaction. After a thermal treatment, the SnCl@LS@GO sample is converted to the final SnO/LSC/RGO sample with an improved microstructure. The SnO/LSC/RGO nanocomposite exhibits excellent lithium-ion storage performances with a high specific capacity of 938.3 mAh/g after 600 cycles at 1000 mA g in half-cells and 517.1 mAh/g after 50 cycles at 200 mA g in full-cells. This work provides a potential strategy of engineering biomass derived high-performance electrode materials for rechargeable batteries.