Facile synthesis of CuO-NiO nanocomposites with high surface areas and their application for lithium-ion batteries

CuO-NiO nanocomposites with high surface areas, which are used as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), are successfully prepared by a facile wet-chemical method. The CuO microspheres, NiO nanosheets and CuO-NiO nanocomposites were characterised by nitrogen adsorption, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The CuO-NiO nanocomposites composed of CuO microspheres and NiO nanosheets possess a high surface area of 158.0 m² g^-1. When the CuO-NiO nanocomposites are used as anode materials, they show an initial discharge and charge capacity of 886.7 and 638.8 mAh g^-1. A high capacity of 562.5 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 C was observed after 50 cycles, which is higher than CuO (345.9 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 C after 50 cycles) and NiO (334.4 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 C after 50 cycles), demonstrating that the CuO-NiO nanocomposites with high surface area show a better cycling performance than pure CuO and NiO. Therefore the CuO-NiO nanocomposites materials have a great potential application in LIBs.