Fabrication, formation mechanism and the application in lithium-ion battery of porous Fe₂O₃ nanotubes via single-spinneret electrospinning

Graphical abstract: Porous Fe₂O₃ nanobelts and nanotubes have been controllably fabricated by annealing the different electrospun precursor nanofibers. When evaluated as a anode material for lithium-ion batteries, the porous Fe₂O₃ nanotubes exhibit good lithium storage performances. - Highlights: • The one dimensional controllable Fe₂O₃ nanostructures are prepared by electrospinning method. • The mechanism for the formation of the controllable Fe₂O₃ nanostructures is investigated. • The electrospinning method is versatile, extensive, available and used extensively. • The porous Fe₂O₃ nanotubes exhibit good lithium storage performances. - Abstract: Porous Fe₂O₃ nanotubes have been fabricated by annealing the electrospun precursor nanofibers. Moreover, the mechanism for the formation of the controllable Fe₂O₃ nanostructures is investigated through manipulating the concentration of the electrospun precursor solution and also discussed based on their morphological evolution processes. When evaluated as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, the porous Fe₂O₃ nanotubes exhibit good lithium storage performance with high specific capacity of 1407.9 mA h g⁻¹ and good cycling stability (stable up to 250 cycles), which is attributed to the unique morphology of the porous, hollow and continuous one dimensional (1D) nanostructures. These results demonstrate that further improvement or optimization of electrochemical performance in metal oxide-based electrode materials could be realized by the design of 1D nanostructures with unique morphologies