Doped tin oxides as potential lithium ion battery negative electrodes

Recently some work has shown that tin oxide compounds can be promising anode materials in rechargeable lithium batteries. These materials show a higher capacity compared to the graphite that is used commercially. The present studies are focused on zinc doped tin oxides as anode materials, especially on the effect of ball-milling on the anode capacity. Different ratios of ZnO and SnO₂ with different times of ball-milling have been used as active materials. The inverse spinel, Zn₂SnO₄ has been prepared by both hand-grinding and ball-milling, followed by sintering and has also been investigated as an active material. Individual ball-milling of the oxides was observed to increase capacity, co-milling was fairly neutral and ball-milling before solid state reaction was observed to have a detrimental effect. Paper presented at the 6th Euroconference on Solid State Ionics, Cetraro, Calabria, Italy, Sept. 12–19, 1999.