A universal synthetic route to carbon nanotube/transition metal oxide nano-composites for lithium ion batteries and electrochemical capacitors

We report a simple synthetic approach to coaxially grow transition metal oxide (TMO) nanostructures on carbon nanotubes (CNT) with ready control of phase and morphology. A thin (~4 nm) sulfonated-polystyrene (SPS) pre-coating is essential for the deposition of transition metal based materials. This layer has abundant sulfonic groups (-SO3-) that can effectively attract Ni2+, Co2+, Zn2+ ions through electrostatic interaction and induce them via hydrolysis, dehydration and recrystallization to form coaxial (NiO, Co3O4, NiCoO2 and ZnCo2O4) shells and a nanosheet-like morphology around CNT. These structures possess a large active surface and enhanced structural robustness when used as electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and electrochemical capacitors (ECs). As electrodes for LIBs, the ZnCo2O4@CNT material shows extremely stable cycling performance with a discharge capacity of 1068 mAh g-1 after 100 cycles at a current density of 400 mAg-1. For EC applications, the NiCoO2@CNT exhibits a high capacitance of 1360 Fg-1 at current densities of 10 Ag-1 after 3000 cycles and an overall capacitance loss of only 1.4%. These results demonstrate the potential of such hybrid materials meeting the crucial requirements of cycling stability and high rate capability for energy conversion and storage devices.