A Facile synthesis of flower-like Co3O4 porous spheres for the lithium-ion battery electrode

The porous hierarchical spherical Co3O4 assembled by nanosheets have been successfully fabricated. The porosity and the particle size of the product can be controlled by simply altering calcination temperature. SEM, TEM and SAED were performed to confirm that mesoporous Co3O4 nanostructures are built-up by numerous nanoparticles with random attachment. The BET specific surface area and pore size of the product calcined at 280 °C are 72.5 m2 g−1 and 4.6 nm, respectively. Our experiments further demonstrated that electrochemical performances of the synthesized products working as an anode material of lithium-ion battery are strongly dependent on the porosity.