An environmentally friendly sepiolite/Cu2O/Cu ternary composite as anode material for Li-ion batteries

Cu 2 O/Cu composite has been widely used as a photocatalyst for hydrogen production. However, little attention has been paid to the electrochemical performance of Cu 2 O/Cu composite in Li-ion batteries (LIBs). Natural clay sepiolite is an impressive inorganic template for the nanocrystallization of functional materials. Besides, the sepiolite shows high wettability towards liquid electrolytes and its pseudocapacitive behavior can increase the specific discharge capacity of the electrodes. Thus, in this paper, natural clay sepiolite was employed to prepare a nanosized sepiolite/Cu 2 O/Cu ternary composite anode for LIBs. The as-prepared environmentally friendly sepiolite/Cu 2 O/Cu anode shows excellent electrochemical performance compared with Cu 2 O and sepiolite. The ternary composite can deliver a specific discharge capacity around 650 mAhg −1 and 295 mAhg −1 at 0.1 A g −1 and 1.0 A g −1 , respectively.