Facile synthesis of carbon/MoO<inf>3</inf> nanocomposites as stable battery anodes

Abstract

Pristine MoO is a potential anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), due to its high specific capacity (1117 mA h g ); 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 MoO is first converted into MoO nanorods (MoO 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 MoO nanorods (C-MoO NRs) exhibit outstanding specific capacity (856 mA h g after 110 cycles at a current density of 0.1 C); remarkable cycle life, among the best reported for carbon-based MoO nanostructures (485 mA h g after 300 cycles at 0.5 C and 373 mA h g after 400 cycles at 0.75 C); and greatly improved capacity retention (up to 90.4% after various C-rates) compared to bulk MoO . We confirm the versatility of the C-MoO NR anodes by preparing flexible batteries that display stable performance, even in bent state. This simple approach toward C-MoO 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. 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 −1 −1 −1 −1