Synergistic effect of porous phosphosulfide and antimony nanospheres anchored on 3D carbon foam for enhanced long-life sodium storage performance

Abstract

Phosphosulphide composites began to be used in energy storage field as an emerging category. However, the restricted variety of morphology structure, the large volume expansion and the poor electronic conductivity will lead to the inferior cycling stability. Herein combing with advantages of high electronic conductivity of metallic Sb and high theoretical capacity of phosphorus, non-metallic porous phosphosulfide nanospheres and ultrafine metallic Sb nanoparticles are synergistically anchored on 3D macroporous interconnected carbon foam to form Sb|P-S@C foam anode for high-performance sodium ion batteries (SIBs). The characteristics of porous feature of phosphosulfide nanospheres, high electrical conductivity and ultrafine size of Sb nanoparticles facilitate the alleviation of volume expansion and improvement of charge transfer and diffusion kinetics. 3D macroporous interconnected carbon foam as a framework offers enough active sites for the formation of Sb|P-S particles, not only effectually inhibiting the aggregation of Sb and phosphosulfide nanospheres due to the high surface energy and activity, but also effectively preventing anode material from pulverization and increasing the effective contact area between electrode and electrolyte, serving as 3D channel for electron/ion rapid transfer. Consequently, benefitting from the structural superiorities and synergistic effect, Sb|P-S@C foam anode delivers a specific capacity of 490 mAh g−1 with a remarkable capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 0.1 A g−1. The low-cost strategy for porous Sb|P-S@C foam anode sets up new paths to design long-cycling large-scale energy storage system.