Phosphorus/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite for high-performance anode of sodium-ion batteries

Abstract

The red phosphorus is considered as a promising anode material for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) due to its high theoretical capacity of 2596 mAh/g. However, red phosphorus suffers from some limitations, such as low electronic conductivity, and huge volume expansion in the process of discharging. Herein, we report a high-performance anode with red phosphorus (rP)/reduced graghene oxide (rGO) nanocomposite via vaporization-condensation method. The resulting nanostructured rP is uniformly distributed on the surfaces of rGO. The obtained rP/rGO anode achieves high reversibility (76.85% initial columbic efficiency), high specific discharge capacity (1582.3 mAh/g at 260 mA/g), stable cycling performances (60.2% capacity retention after 50 cycles), and high rate performances (up to 7800 mA/g current density). These high performances of our nanocomposite materials suggest that the rP/rGO anode is of great potential for future high energy SIBs.