Gestated uniform yolk-shell Sn@N-doped hollow mesoporous carbon spheres with buffer space for boosting lithium storage performance.

Based on the confined growth strategy and hydrogen thermal reduction, uniform yolk-shell structured Sn@NHMCSs were designed with metal Sn as the core and mesoporous carbon as the shell. The void between the Sn yolk and carbon shell provides enough buffer space for the expansion of the alloying reaction of Sn, which greatly improves the poor cycling stability of Sn as an anode material in lithium ion batteries. In addition, we observed that tiny particles were still encapsulated in the hollow carbon sphere cavity after the alloying/dealloying reaction.