Graphite carbon-encapsulated metal nanoparticles derived from Prussian blue analogs growing on natural loofa as cathode materials for rechargeable aluminum-ion batteries

Kaiqiang Zhang; Tae Hyung Lee; Bailey Bubach; Ho Won Jang; Mehdi Ostadhassan; Ji-Won Choi; Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50154-8

Graphite carbon-encapsulated metal nanoparticles derived from Prussian blue analogs growing on natural loofa as cathode materials for rechargeable aluminum-ion batteries

Sci Rep. 2019 Sep 20;9(1):13665. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50154-8.

Authors

Kaiqiang Zhang^{1

2}, Tae Hyung Lee¹, Bailey Bubach³, Ho Won Jang¹, Mehdi Ostadhassan⁴, Ji-Won Choi⁵, Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Research Institute of Advanced Materials, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
² Electronic Materials Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul, 136-791, South Korea.
³ Department of Petroleum Engineering, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, 58202, United States.
⁴ Department of Petroleum Engineering, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, 58202, United States. Mehdi.Ostadhassan@und.edu.
⁵ Electronic Materials Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul, 136-791, South Korea. jwchoi@kist.re.kr.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Research Institute of Advanced Materials, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea. mrsh2@snu.ac.kr.
⁷ Department of Petroleum Engineering, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, 58202, United States. mrsh2@snu.ac.kr.

Abstract

Aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs) are attracting increasing attention as a potential energy storage system owing to the abundance of Al sources and high charge density of Al³⁺. However, suitable cathode materials to further advance high-performing AIBs are unavailable. Therefore, we demonstrated the compatibility of elemental metal nanoparticles (NPs) as cathode materials for AIBs. Three types of metal NPs (Co@C, Fe@C, CoFe@C) were formed by in-situ growing Prussian blue analogs (PBAs, Co[Co(CN)₆], Fe[Fe(CN)₆] and Co[Fe(CN)₆]) on a natural loofa (L) by a room-temperature wet chemical method in aqueous bath, followed by a carbonization process. The employed L effectively formed graphite C-encapsulated metal NPs after heat treatment. The discharge capacity of CoFe@C was superior (372 mAh g^-1) than others (103 mAh g^-1 for Co@C and 75 mAh g^-1 for Fe@C). The novel design results in CoFe@C with an outstanding long-term charge/discharge cycling performance (over 1,000 cycles) with a Coulombic efficiency of 94.1%. Ex-situ X-ray diffraction study indicates these metal NP capacities are achieved through a solid-state diffusion-limited Al storage process. This novel design for cathode materials is highly significant for the further development of advanced AIBs in the future.