Single-step chemical synthesis of CoFe₂O₄ nanowire arrays/Cu foam integrated electrode as binder-free anode with enhanced lithium storage properties

The integrated anode was simply synthesized via a simple hydrothermal followed by annealing. The schematic illustration of the synthesis process for the CFO NWAs, CFO/ Cu-foil NWAs, CFO/Cu-foam NWAs was shown in figure 1. Before synthesis, the circular copper foils and foam copper substrates with 12 mm diameter were ultrasonic cleaned in acetone, ethanol and ultrapure water respectively, and then vacuum drying as pre-treated substrate. In a typical synthesis, Co(NO₃)₂ · 6H₂O (0.5 mmol) and Fe(NO₃)₃ · 9H₂O (1 mmol) were added to 35 ml deionized water successively, then urea (CH₄N₂O) (8 mmol) and NH₄F (4 mmol) were added, the solution was stirred during the whole course. Then the solution and the pre-treated substrates were transferred to stainless steel autoclave lined with Teflon. The autoclave was sealed at 140 °C for 4 h. After cooling, the hybrid anode was washed using deionized water and ethanol for several times, and then dried in a vacuum oven at 60 °C for 12 h. The final CFO nanowire arrays integrated electrodes were obtained by heat treatment at 400 °C at a heating rate of 3 °C min⁻¹ for 2 h and then cooled in the furnace with high purity argon as protective gas. For comparison, the hydrothermal reaction products in Teflon linings were collected, cleaned, dried and annealed to obtain CFO powder samples as reference groups.

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The phase was detected by Panalytical X'Pert x-ray diffractometer (Holland) using Cu-Kα radiation. The microstructure of the specimens was conducted by scanning electron microscope (S-3400, Hitachi). The fine microstructure and electron diffraction pattern were detected by the TEM (TESCAN, MIRA3). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) data was recorded using a K-Alpha XPS spectrometer (Thermo ESCALAB 250XI).

For the electrochemical measurements, the as-prepared CFO/Cu-foam NWAs and CFO/Cu-foil NWAs integrated electrodes was used as the anodes directly. But for the control group of CFO powder, the anode needs prepared by the following procedure. First, the active material, acetylene black and polyvinylidene fluoride with the weight ratio of 7:2:1 was mixed uniformly. Afterwards, the slurry was evenly covered on the copper foil, and then dried under vacuum at 60 °C for 12 h.

The electrolyte was comprised of 1.0 M LiPF₆ in a dimethyl carbonate and ethylene carbonate mixture (DMC:EC, 1:1, v/v). Lithium metal plate was used as counter electrode and Celgard 2400 (Ф 19 mm) microporous membrane was used as diaphragm. The CR2032 coin cell was assembled in glove box with the concentration of H₂O and O₂ was controlled to lower than 0.01 ppm.

The cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements at a scanning rate of 0.2 mV·s⁻¹ over the potential range of 0.01–3.0 V were conducted on the electrochemical workstation (CHI660A, CH Instruments Ins, Shanghai, China). The charge/discharge profiles with a voltage range of 0.01–3.0 V (versus Li/Li⁺) were recorded on a battery test instrument (CT4008, Neware Electronics Co., Ltd, Shenzhen, China). Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) test was conducted on the workstation (versa satt3 Princeton) with the frequency range of 10⁵-10⁻² Hz and AC voltage amplitude of 5 mV as the perturbation. All electrochemical measurements were carried out at room temperature.

The crystalline phase of CFO NWAs, CFO/Cu-foil NWAs, CFO/Cu-foam NWAs was confirmed by XRD and shown in figure 2. For the XRD pattern of CFO NWAs (figure 2(a)), all the peaks were indexed as (220), (311), (400), (422), (511), (440) and (533) crystal planes of spinel phase CoFe₂O₄ (JCPDS, No.22-1086), respectively. But in the XRD pattern of CFO/Cu-foil NWAs (figure 2(a)), except for the diffraction peaks of spinel phase CoFe₂O₄, there is some impurities which assigned to the substrate copper and oxide of copper. With respect to the XRD pattern of CFO/Cu-foam NWAs (figure 2(b)), only the diffraction peaks of the substrate of foam copper and spinel phase CoFe₂O₄ can be detected, implies the synthesis of CFO on the Cu foam substrate.

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The elemental components and the electronic states of the CFO/Cu-foam NWAs can be demonstrated by XPS analysis. The sample contains Cu, Co, Fe, O elements and C which possibly originate from the adsorbed carbonaceous materials as shown in the entire spectrum in figure 3(a) [8]. For the high-resolution Co 2p spectrum (figure 3(b)), there are two dominating peaks centered at 780.9 and 796.6 eV, which belong to Co 2p_3/2 and Co 2p_1/2, respectively. The bond energy difference between the two peaks is about 15.7 eV, indicating that the Co ion is in the typical bivalent formal oxidation state (Co²⁺). For the deconvoluted Fe 2p spectrum (figure 3(c)), the first two fitting peaks (located at 711.5 eV and 712.8 eV) of Fe 2p_3/2 are correspond to the tetrahedral and octahedral sites, respectively. However, the higher peaks with the binding energy of 723.3 eV and 726.2 eV can be attributed to Fe 2p_1/2, which is typical feature of Fe³⁺ ion [8, 31]. In the high-resolution O 1s spectrum (figure 3(d)), the strong peak at 529.6 eV can be attributed to the lattice oxygen of CFO, while another peak at 531.4 eV is due to the chemical adsorption or dissociated oxygen, or OH species on the surface of CFO [6, 31].

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The microstructure of as-prepared materials was exhibited by SEM and TEM. The low- and high-resolution SEM images of CFO powders are shown in figures 4(a) and (b). From figure 4(a), CFO partilces grow into a needle shapes with diameters of about 80–150 nm and aggregate into flower like structures. The high resolution image in figure 4(b) further reveals the needles like structure of the flowers are growing in all direction and radially agglomerated. For CFO/Cu-foil NWAs sample, except for the similar flower like structure, there is some spherical particles on the surface of Cu foil (figures 4(c) and (d)). Different from the CFO grown on the copper foil, on the surface of copper foam, the needle like CFO crystals grow along the direction perpendicular to the surface. As shown in figures 4(e) and (f), the foam copper skeleton has been covered by ordered CFO nanowires, which clearly shows that CFO nanocrystals anchored on conductive foam copper. The large surface area of nanowires can significantly provide many active sites and shorter diffusion distance between electrode and electrolyte to improve electrochemical performance [32].

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For further study the structural characteristics of CFO nanowires, the CFO nanostructures were stripped from the surface of CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrodes for TEM observation. The TEM images in figure 5(a) and locally enlarged image of area 1 in figure 5(b) show the needle structure of CFO and the average diameter of CFO nanowires are about 100 nm, which is unanimous with the SEM images. Next high-resolution image (HRTEM) (figure 5(c)) indicates the crystal structure of the sample is stable with regular lattice fringes of 0.265 nm, corresponding to the (311) plane of cubic CFO. Besides, the selected area electron diffraction (SAED) image in figure 5(d) demonstrates the cubic crystal of CFO, the diffraction spots can be indexed to planes of (311) and (3$\bar{2}$1), which is corresponding with the results of XRD and HRTEM.

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In order to study the effect of introduction binder-free conductive foam substrate on the electrochemical performance, the CFO NWAs, CFO/Cu-foil NWAs and CFO/Cu-foam NWAs integrated electrode were evaluated as anode for lithium batteries.

Figure 6 shows the similar cyclic voltammetry (CV) characteristics of the three kinds electrodes in the initial three consecutive cycles at a scan rate of 0.2 mV·s⁻¹ in the potential range from 0.01–3.0 V versus Li/Li⁺, which indicating similar electrochemical reactions. For the CV curves of CFO/Cu-foam NWAs as anode (figure 6(c)), in the first cathodic process, a sharp peak at ~0.5 V corresponds to the reduction of Co²⁺ and Fe³⁺ to their metallics states with the formation of Li₂O (equation (1)), as well as the formation of solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film. In the following cycle, the reduction peak shifts to higher potential due to the electrode polarization during the initial charge-discharge process. In the anodic process, there are two broad peaks at about 1.70 V and 1.83 V can be ascribed to the oxidation of Co and Fe to their oxide states (equation (2)), different from the cathodic process, the oxidation peak did not drift to a higher potential after first scanning. It is worth noting that the peak intensity of second and third cycles for CFO NWAs anode (figure 6(a)) are obvious different, but for CFO/Cu-foam anode (figure 6(c)), the following CV curves incline to be stable and overlap well, which means that the CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrode has good electrochemical reversibility and cyclic stability.

$$\begin{eqnarray}&&CoF{e}_{2}{O}_{4}+8L{i}^{+}+8{e}^{-}\to 2Fe+Co+4L{i}_{2}O\end{eqnarray} \tag{ 1 }$$

$$\begin{eqnarray}&&2Fe+Co+4L{i}_{2}O\,\to CoF{e}_{2}{O}_{4}+8L{i}^{+}+8{e}^{-}\end{eqnarray} \tag{ 2 }$$

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The galvanostatic discharge/charge process was illustrated in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 50th, and 100th cycles at current density of 1.0 A·g⁻¹ for three kinds electrodes (figures 7(a)–(c)). The initial discharge capacity of CFO NWAs, CFO/Cu-foil NWAs, CFO/Cu-foam NWAs are less distinctive, which are 1304.4, 1238.3, 1227.6 mAh·g⁻¹, respectively. In addition, in the first discharge process of CFO/Cu-foil NWAs, CFO/ Cu-foam NWAs electrodes, there is a voltage platform at about 0.7 V, which corresponds to the conversion reaction in equation (1), the result is consistent with CV measurement in the first cycle, as shown in figure 6. The initial coulombic efficiency (ICE) for CFO/Cu-foam NWAs is 71.9% which is higher than CFO/Cu-foil NWAs with the ICE of 69.9%, however, the ICE for CFO NWAs is only 51.5%. The irreversible loss of capacity may be caused by the SEI layer in the initial cycle. Figure 7(d) further makes a comparison on cycling performances of CFO NWAs, CFO/Cu-foil NWAs, CFO/Cu-foam NWAs. CFO/Cu-foam NWAs exhibits the higher discharge capacity (882.7 mAh·g⁻¹) of the second cycles and capacity retention (832.1 mAh·g⁻¹) after 100 cycles than those of CFO NWAs (365.8 mAh·g⁻¹), CFO/Cu-foil NWAs (585.6 mAh·g⁻¹). Obviously, CFO/Cu-foam NWAs anode has excellent cycling characteristics due to sufficient buffer volume variation during the cycle.

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The rate performance of CFO NWAs, CFO/Cu-foil NWAs and CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrodes at current densities of 100 mA·g⁻¹, 200 mA·g⁻¹, 500 mA·g⁻¹ and 1000 mA·g⁻¹ are shown in figure 8. With the increase of current density from 100 mA·g⁻¹ to 1000 mA·g⁻¹, a slowly attenuation of the capacities for the three electrodes, this may imply that the electrode reaction is controlled by diffusion process [33]. Significantly, when the current drops back to 100 mA·g⁻¹, a high capacity of 976.1 mAh·g⁻¹ for CFO/Cu-foam NWAs can be regained, which indicating good reversibility and cyclic stability of the electrode. But for CFO/Cu-foil and CFO NWAs anodes, the energy density regained are 763.1 mAh·g⁻¹ and 535.3 mAh·g⁻¹, respectively. The excellent performance of the CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrode is main benefit from nano-scale active materials on framework of copper foam and without binder.

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In order to reveal transport kinetics of electron and Li⁺ in the anodes, three kinds electrode were investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis. As shown in figure 9, the Nyquist curve consisted a high-frequency semicircle, the diameter of the semicircle represented the charge transfer resistance (R_CT) and a linear in the low-frequency region which related to the diffusion coefficient of Li⁺ [34]. Compared with CFO NWAs (R_CT = 225.4 Ω) and CFO/Cu-foil NWAs (R_CT = 178.6 Ω), the semicircle diameter of CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrode (R_CT = 45.1 Ω) is smaller, which indicates that the charge transfer rate is faster in CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrode and confirms that the electrochemical kinetics of the anode is enhanced and the charge transfer process is accelerated. The slope of the CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrode can be clearly seen from the slant slope of the three low frequency regions, indicating that the Li⁺ diffusion kinetics is faster than that of CFO NWAs and CFO/Cu-foil NWAs. This is due to the close combination of the CFO nanowire arrays and the collector of the porous copper foam, and the synergistic effect of the high specific surface area of the nanowires, these promote the fast electron transfer. EIS results show that the reasonable structure design can reduce the contact resistance and charge transfer resistance in the electrode, so as to improve the electrochemical performance of CFO.

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The SEM morphologies of CFO/Cu-foam NWAs and CFO/Cu-foil NWAs after suffer for 100 cycles are shown in figure 10. As shown in figure 10(b), the CFO/Cu-foam NWAs electrode sheet still maintains its 3D network structure after cycling and nanowires are well anchored on the substrate surface as before, which indicating a good structural stability of CFO/Cu-foam NWAs. In contrast, most of the active substances on the CFO/Cu foil-NWAs electrode sheet have fallen off, as shown in figure 10(a), which lead to bad cycle stability and rate capability of the electrodes.

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