Abstract
Pristine MoO3 is a potential anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), due to its high specific capacity (1117 mA h g−1); it suffers, however, from poor cyclability, resulting from a low conductivity and large volume changes during lithiation/delithiation process. Here we adopt a facile two-step method in which pristine bulk MoO3 is first converted into MoO3 nanorods (MoO3 NR) through mechanical grinding, to buffer the continuous volume changes, and then coated with amorphous carbon through simple stirring and heating, to provide high electronic and ionic conductivities. Electrochemical tests reveal that the carbon-coated MoO3 nanorods (C-MoO3 NRs) exhibit outstanding specific capacity (856 mA h g−1 after 110 cycles at a current density of 0.1 C); remarkable cycle life, among the best reported for carbon-based MoO3 nanostructures (485 mA h g−1 after 300 cycles at 0.5 C and 373 mA h g−1 after 400 cycles at 0.75 C); and greatly improved capacity retention (up to 90.4% after various C-rates) compared to bulk MoO3. We confirm the versatility of the C-MoO3 NR anodes by preparing flexible batteries that display stable performance, even in bent state. This simple approach toward C-MoO3 NR anodes proceeds without rigorous chemical synthesis or extremely high temperatures, making it a scalable solution to prepare high-capacity anodes for next-generation LIBs.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 270-280 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Power Sources |
Volume | 348 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 9 2017 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledgements: We thank the Academia Sinica and ITRI collaboration project of Taiwan (23yy-y110504); the Career Development Award of Academia Sinica, Taiwan (103-CDA-M01); and the Key Programs of Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi (2015GXNSFDA139034), for financial support. We thank NanoCore, the Core Facilities for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, for technical support. We thank Mr. Abhishek Pathak and Mr. Shang-Hsuan Wu for the TGA and Raman spectral measurements, respectively.