Facile Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Double-Shelled Hollow Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres as High-Performance Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries

In this work, a facile “soft-template” route to synthesize nitrogen-doped double-shelled hollow mesoporous carbon spheres (N-DHMCSs) has been developed by using anionic block copolymer polystyrene-b-poly­(acrylic acid) (PS-b-PAA) micelles as soft template, tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as silica source, and dopamine (DA) as carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively. After carbonization of the PDA precursors and the removal of silica, the obtained N-DHMCSs present high specific surface area (>600 m2/g), adjustable nitrogen doping content (4.02%–5.91% in weight ratios), and unique double-shell hollow structures. Especially, the sample of N-DHMCSs-800 carbonized at 800 °C exhibits a high discharge specific capacity of 920.3 mA h/g at a current density of 0.1 A/g after 100 cycles. In addition, at a relative high current density of 0.5 A/g, its discharge specific capacity is up to 614.1 mA h/g even after 300 cycles. More importantly, it demonstrates excellent rate capabilities by the fact that a high reversible capacity of 910.9 mA h/g was maintained after cycling at different current densities. Therefore, it is anticipated that such a facile “soft-template” strategy can provide us a promising platform for preparing multishelled and hollow structured nanomaterials with various components and functions.