Synergistic Effect of Mesoporous Co3O4 Nanowires Confined by N-Doped Graphene Aerogel for Enhanced Lithium Storage

A one‐step multipurpose strategy is developed to realize a sophisticated design that simultaneously integrates three desirable components of nitrogen dopant, 3D graphene, and 1D mesoporous metal oxide nanowires into one hybrid material. This facile synthetic strategy includes a one‐step hydrothermal reaction followed by topotactic calcination. The utilization of urea as the starting reagent enables the precipitation of precursor nanowires and concurrent doping of nitrogen heteroatoms on graphene during hydrothermal reaction, while at the same time the graphene nanosheets are self‐assembled to afford a 3D scaffold. Detailed characterizations on the final calcined product are conducted to confirm the phase purity, porosity, nitrogen composition, and morphology. The integration of two building blocks, i.e., flexible graphene nanosheets and Co3O4 nanowires, enables various intertwining behaviors such as seaming, bridging, hooping, bundling, and sandwiching, of which synergistic effect substantially enhances electrical and electrochemical properties of the resultant hybrid. For lithium ion battery application of the hybrid, a remarkably high capacity more than 1200 mA h g−1 (at 100 mA g−1) is stabilized over 100 cycles with coulombic efficiency higher than 97%. Even during rapid discharge/charge processes (1000 mA g−1), a reversible charge capacity of 812 mA h g−1 is still retained after 230 cycles. A one‐step multipurpose strategy is developed to simultaneously integrate nitrogen dopants, 3D graphene, and 1D porous metal oxide nanowires into a hybrid material. The resulting hybrid exhibits a synergistic enhancement in the performance of lithium storage in terms of ultrahigh capacity, superb rate capability, and capacity retainability.