Effective combination of Fe₂O₃ with hierarchical porous carbon for high-performance lithium storage

Herein, the well-designed hybrid materials composed of Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles embedded in hierarchical porous carbon matrix (HPCs/Fe₂O₃) were prepared by a two-step approach, involving a salt template route followed by hydrothermal treatment. The hierarchical porous structure not only serves as a buffer matrix to alleviate the volume expansion of Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles, but also provides a large surface area and high electrical conductivity, resulting in significant improvement of electrochemical performance. HPCs/Fe₂O₃-2 anode delivers a high reversible capacity of 1357.60 mAh g⁻¹ after 100 cycles at 0.2 A g⁻¹ and an outstanding rate behavior. It also exhibits an excellent cycling-life stability of 472.3 mAh g⁻¹ after 1000 cycles at a high current density of 5 A g⁻¹, suggesting its potential application in LIBs anode.