Owing to the increasing demand for alternative energy sources, the development of advanced high-performance energy-storage devices is a growing area of research. Electrode materials play a vital role in the development of high-performance energy-storage devices, such as lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and recently nanostructured transition metal oxides have been studied as alternative anode materials for LIBs.

Anjon Kumar Mondal, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, Guoxiu Wang, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Jiangsu, China, and co-workers have succeeded in the synthesis of a mesoporous flake-like manganese-cobalt composite oxide (MnCo₂O₄), by means of a hydrothermal method. When investigated for its use as an anode material in LIBs, the researchers found that owing to its mesoporous nature, it exhibited a high reversible capacity of 1066 mA h g^–1, good rate capability, and superior cycling stability over prolonged charge/discharge cycling.

• Mesoporous MnCo₂O₄ with a Flake-Like Structure as Advanced Electrode Materials for Lithium-ion batteries and Supercapacitors,
  Anjon Kumar Mondal, Dawei Su, Shuangqiang Chen, Alison Ung, Hyun-Soo Kim, Guoxiu Wang,
  Chem. Eur. J. 2014.
  DOI: 10.1002/chem.201405698