Nanometer copper–tin alloy with amorphous structures was
prepared by a reverse microemulsion technique and used as
anode material for lithium-ion batteries. The electrochemical
performance of alloy was influenced by its particle size. The
control of the final particle size could be achieved by appropriate
surfactant content. The contact resistance between nanometer
particles resulted in the poor electric conductivity and the
match of particle size and conductive agent content had a great
impact on the electrochemical performance of the nanometer
copper–tin alloy anode. When the conductive agent content
increased to 40%, the nanometer copper–tin alloy with particle
size of 50–60 nm presented the best performance, which had
a reversible specific capacity of 300mAh/g over the full voltage
range 0.0–1.2V and capacity retention after 50 cycles was
93.3%.