Sub-100 nm hollow carbon nanospheres with thin shells are highly desirable anode materials for energy storage applications. However, their synthesis remains a great challenge with conventional strategies. In this work, we demonstrate that hollow carbon nanospheres of unprecedentedly small sizes (down to ∼32.5 nm and with thickness of ∼3.9 nm) can be produced on a large scale by a templating process in a unique reverse micelle system. Reverse micelles enable a spatially confined Stöber process that produces uniform silica nanospheres with significantly reduced sizes compared with those from a conventional Stöber process, and a subsequent well-controlled sol–gel coating process with a resorcinol–formaldehyde resin on these silica nanospheres as a precursor of the hollow carbon nanospheres. Owing to the short diffusion length resulting from their hollow structure, as well as their small size and microporosity, these hollow carbon nanospheres show excellent capacity and cycling stability when used as anode materials for lithium/sodium-ion batteries.

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具有薄壳的低于100 nm的中空碳纳米球是储能应用中非常需要的阳极材料。然而，它们的合成仍然是常规策略的巨大挑战。在这项工作中，我们证明了通过独特的反胶束体系中的模板过程可以大规模生产出前所未有的小尺寸（低至约32.5 nm，厚度约3.9 nm）的中空碳纳米球。反向胶束可实现空间受限的Stöber工艺，与常规Stöber工艺相比，该工艺可生产出尺寸明显减小的均匀二氧化硅纳米球，并随后在这些二氧化硅纳米球上以间苯二酚-甲醛树脂为前体，对其进行了良好控制的溶胶-凝胶涂覆工艺中空的碳纳米球。

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