Tin-based materials: the future of anode materials for lithium ion battery?

Tin and tin oxide materials have been considered as the promising new materials to replace the current graphite anode of lithium ion battery because of their exceptionally high theoretical capacity at least 3 times higher than those of graphite, low cost and environmental benignity. However, tin-based anode performances and durability are still under debate and linked on the texture, structure and morphology of those materials. In this work, we provide systematic and reproducible results to compare electrochemical performances of tin-based anode materials. Nanostructured Sn, SnO and SnO2 have been investigated in half-cells. Capacities, fading upon cycling, energy density and power density have been studied and related to the oxygen content. Post-mortem characterizations have been done by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) in order to determine the failure modes of the materials. The results showed that SnO appears as a promising candidate to be inserted in negative electrode.