Cover Picture: Graphene‐Encapsulated Nanosheet‐Assembled Zinc–Nickel–Cobalt Oxide Microspheres for Enhanced Lithium Storage (ChemSusChem 2/2016)

Abstract

© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. The Cover picture shows how the electrochemical performance of nanosheet-assembled ternary zinc-nickel-cobalt oxide (ZNCO) microspheres as anodes for lithium ion batteries can be significantly improved by externally coating graphene sheets (GNS) to a form ZNCO/graphene core/shell geometry. Transition metal oxides normally exhibit poor intrinsic electronic conductivity and poor structural stability, which might fail to sustain large volume changes and thus lead to poor rate capability and rapid capacity decay. The appropriate combination of nanosheet-assembled ZNCO microspheres with GNS in core/shell geometry is highly desirable for improved electrochemical performance of the ZNCOs as anodes in lithium ion batteries. The lithium ion storage performance is greatly improved by the external wrapping of graphene sheets. The wrapping increases the rate capability by enhancing electrical conductivity and maintaining low mass-transfer resistance and improves cyclic stability by avoiding aggregation and buffering the volume changes of ZNCO microspheres during charge and discharge processes. More details can be found in the Full Paper by Zhang etal. (DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201501151).