Biomass-Derived N-Doped Dendritic 3D Carbon@ZnO Nanoparticles as High-Performance Anode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries

This study utilized the cotton wool part of cigarette butts as a biomass precursor to synthesize ZnO@C-NA composite heterojunction (ZnO attached to a three-dimensional dendritic structure of carbon nanotubes) through a simple liquid phase deposition method. The composite structure of ZnO and C-NA has rich redox active sites and a large specific surface area. Compared with the three-dimensional dendritic carbon nanotube (C-NA) and ZnO anode (ZnO DS), the reversible capacity of the ZnO@C-NA anode is 627 mAh/g (200 cycles, 0.1 A) and 550 mAh/g (1000 cycles, 1 A). The synergistic effect of the carbon structure and zinc oxide component effectively improves the storage capacity of LIBs, accelerates the reaction kinetics, and effectively suppresses the volume expansion of zinc oxide during charging and discharging. This study provides a feasible strategy for developing novel negative electrode materials with rich resources and a simple synthesis route. The optimized heterojunction negative electrode has excellent Li⁺ storage performance and has good application prospects in advanced LIBs and other energy storage devices.