Electron-Injection-Engineering Induced Phase Transition toward Stabilized 1T-MoS2 with Extraordinary Sodium Storage Performance

Hanna He; Xiaolong Li; Dan Huang; Jinyi Luan; Sailin Liu; Wei Kong Pang; Dan Sun; Yougen Tang; Wenzheng Zhou; Lirong He; Chuhong Zhang; Haiyan Wang; Zaiping Guo

doi:10.1021/acsnano.1c01518

Electron-Injection-Engineering Induced Phase Transition toward Stabilized 1T-MoS₂ with Extraordinary Sodium Storage Performance

ACS Nano. 2021 May 25;15(5):8896-8906. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.1c01518. Epub 2021 May 10.

Authors

Hanna He¹, Xiaolong Li^{1

2}, Dan Huang³, Jinyi Luan⁴, Sailin Liu², Wei Kong Pang², Dan Sun⁴, Yougen Tang⁴, Wenzheng Zhou³, Lirong He¹, Chuhong Zhang¹, Haiyan Wang⁴, Zaiping Guo^{5

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Polymer Research Institute, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, P. R. China.
² Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronics, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong 2500, New South Wales, Australia.
³ Guangxi Key Laboratory for Relativistic Astrophysics, Guangxi Colleges and Universities Key Laboratory of Novel Energy Materials and Related Technology, Guangxi Novel Battery Materials Research Center of Engineering Technology, School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, P. R. China.
⁴ Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Power Sources, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Efficient and Clean Utilization of Manganese Resources, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, P. R. China.
⁵ School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, SA, Australia.

PMID: 33970601
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c01518

Abstract

Phase transition engineering, with the ability to alter the electronic structure and physicochemical properties of materials, has been widely used to achieve the thermodynamically unstable metallic phase MoS₂ (1T-MoS₂), although the complex operating conditions and low yield of previous strategies make the large-scale fabrication of 1T-MoS₂ a big challenge. Herein, we report a facile electron injection strategy for phase transition engineering and fabricate a composite of conductive TiO chemically bonded to 1T-MoS₂ nanoflowers (TiO-1T-MoS₂ NFs) on a large scale. The underlying mechanism analysis reveals that electron-injection-engineering triggers a reorganization of the Mo 4d orbitals and results in a 100% phase transition of MoS₂ from 2H to 1T. In the TiO-1T-MoS₂ NFs composite, the 1T-MoS₂ demonstrates a higher electronic conductivity, a lower Na⁺ diffusion barrier, and a more restricted S release than 2H-MoS₂. In addition, conductive TiO bonding successfully resolves the stability challenge of the 1T phase. These merits endow TiO-1T-MoS₂ NFs electrodes with an excellent rate capability (650/288 mAh g^-1 at 50/20 000 mA g^-1, respectively) and an outstanding cyclability (501 mAh g^-1 at 1000 mA g^-1 after 700 cycles) in sodium ion batteries. Such an improvement signifies that this facile and scalable phase-transition engineering combined with a deep mechanism analysis offers an important reference for designing advanced materials for various applications.

Keywords: metallic-phase molybdenum disulfide; phase-transition engineering; rate performance; sulfur release; titanium monoxide chemical bonding.