Catalytic chemistry inspired hollow carbon nanofibers loaded with NiS/Ni as high-performance and safe Li+ reservoir

Chuang He; Yanan Wei; Zhirong Wang; Junling Wang; Yuen Kwok Kit Richard

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.02.212

Catalytic chemistry inspired hollow carbon nanofibers loaded with NiS/Ni as high-performance and safe Li⁺ reservoir

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Jun 15:664:156-167. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.02.212. Epub 2024 Mar 1.

Authors

Chuang He¹, Yanan Wei², Zhirong Wang³, Junling Wang⁴, Yuen Kwok Kit Richard⁵

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hazardous Chemicals Safety and Control, College of Safety Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hazardous Chemicals Safety and Control, College of Safety Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China; School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China.
³ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hazardous Chemicals Safety and Control, College of Safety Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China. Electronic address: wangzhirong@njtech.edu.cn.
⁴ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hazardous Chemicals Safety and Control, College of Safety Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China; Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Electronic address: wjl1994@njtech.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.

PMID: 38471188
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.02.212

Abstract

Transition metal sulfides (TMSs) based anodes hold a very broad application prospect in lithium ion batteries (LIBs). In this work, the catalytic effect of metallic nickel at high temperature was used to generate hollow carbon nanofibers loaded with NiS and Ni (denoted as NiS/Ni@HCNF). The heteroatoms doped carbon fibers buffer the huge volumetric change of NiS during the discharge/charge process, and enhance the ion transport efficiency and electrical conductivity. In addition, the high specific surface area brought by the hollow carbon nanofibers can accelerate the electrolyte penetration and speed up the transport of ions as well as electrons. When used as anode of half cell, this electrode gives 958.5 and 612.9 mAh/g after running 1000 cycles under 1 and 2 A/g, showing the extremely-low attenuation rates of 0.0483 % per cycle and 0.0643 % per cycle, respectively. Impressively, NCM//NiS/Ni@HCNF battery shows the discharge capacity of 187.6 mAh/g at 1st cycle. Regarding the next 100 cycles, the relatively-high discharge capacities (>110 mAh/g) and coulombic efficiency (CE) values (>96 %) are discerned. It is noted that the usage of NiS/Ni@HCNF electrode improves the activation energy for thermal runaway, corroborating the elevated thermal safety of battery.

Keywords: Energy storage; Hollow carbon nanofibers; Thermal safety; Transition metal sulfide.