Review—Recent Advances of Carbon-Based Nanocomposites as the Anode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries: Synthesis and Performance

Abstract

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries as an energy storage device have drawn significant attention due to increasing demand especially in transportation, mobile, and renewable energy applications. Despite their wide utilization, the improvement of Li-ion batteries’ performance, including the enhancement of energy density, stability, and safety, remains a big challenge to overcome. Carbon nanostructures (1D, 2D, 3D) show potential as the anode materials for Li-ion batteries which possess high stability and Li-ion conductivity, yet they offer low capacity. Contrarily, metalloids and transition metal oxides materials, which show high capacity, suffer low Li-ion conductivity and exhibit volume expansion during charge/discharge. Combining these materials with carbon nanostructures to create carbon-based nanocomposites as the anode materials for Li-ion batteries is considered one of the most lucrative strategies to achieve improved performance. These composites form high stability, high conductivity, and high-capacity anode materials. Furthermore, the addition of heteroatoms to carbon nanostructures also significantly increases capacity. Herein, we intensively discuss several categories of carbon-based nanocomposites and the effect on their properties as well as performance (initial charge/discharge capacity, cycling performance). In addition, several future prospects and challenges are addressed.