Pristine cobalt humic acid xerogels embedded with ultrafine cobalt sulfide for enhanced and stable lithium-ion storage

Abstract

The electrochemical performance of pristine metal–organic xerogels as anodes in lithium-ion batteries is reported for the first time. We propose a novel synthesis approach for the in situ generation of highly dispersed, ultrafine cobalt sulfide nanoparticles on humic acid gels (CoSHA). The CoS nanoparticles in CoSHA have an average diameter of approximately 3 nm. CoSHA electrodes demonstrate enhanced lithium storage capacity, delivering a capacity of 662 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1. They also show stable long-term cycling performance, with no capacity decay after 900 cycles at 1.0 A g−1. Furthermore, our experiments indicate that the improved lithium-ion adsorption results from the oxygen-containing functional groups in humic acid and the ultrafine CoS active sites. This study offers a practical methodology for synthesizing ultrafine metal sulfides and new insights into using pristine gel-based electrodes for energy storage and conversion.