Ultrasmall MoS2 Nanosheets Mosaiced into Nitrogen-Doped Hierarchical Porous Carbon Matrix for Enhanced Sodium Storage Performance

Abstract

MoS2 has recently been regarded as a promising anode material for sodium ion batteries (SIBs). However, it remains challenging to attain high-performance MoS2-based anodes for SIBs integrated robust cyclability with rate capability more cheaply and scalably until now. Herein, via a facile polysterene nanosphere (PS)-templated sol-gel method, nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon (NHPC) matrix mosaiced with ultrasmall MoS2 nanosheets (MoS2@NHPC) has been synthesized as anode for SIBs. In half batteries, the MoS2@NHPC shows high reversible capacity (500mAhg−1 at 0.1Ag−1), excellent rate capability (330mAhg−1 at 5Ag−1) and robust cycling stability (340mAhg−1 at 1Ag−1 over 550 cycles). Moreover, when coupled with the Na3V2(PO4)3 (NVP) cathode in a full battery, the MoS2@NHPC anode also displays high reversible specific capacity of 350mAhg−1 at 0.2Ag−1, and robust cycling stability of over 130 cycles. The excellent performance is benefited from the uniform mosaic of ultrasmall MoS2 nanosheets into the NHPC, which effectively facilitates the ionic and electronic conductivity, and accommodates the volume changes during desodiation-sodiation process. Such design may enlighten to develop the other high-performance materials for energy storage.