Hierarchical Mesoporous Iron Fluoride and Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposite as Cathode Materials for High-Performance Sodium-Ion Batteries

Chao Zhang; Shengli An; Wenting Li; Hanying Xu; Weijian Hao; Wei Liu; Zelin Li; Xinping Qiu

doi:10.1021/acsami.0c01652

Hierarchical Mesoporous Iron Fluoride and Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposite as Cathode Materials for High-Performance Sodium-Ion Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Apr 15;12(15):17538-17546. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c01652. Epub 2020 Mar 31.

Authors

Chao Zhang^{1

2

3}, Shengli An^{1

3}, Wenting Li¹, Hanying Xu², Weijian Hao², Wei Liu², Zelin Li³, Xinping Qiu²

Affiliations

¹ School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China.
² Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics and Molecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
³ Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, School of Materials and Metallurgy, Baotou 014010, China.

PMID: 32202750
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c01652

Abstract

Sodium-ion batteries have been considered as one of ideal power sources for energy storage system. However, the choice of cathode material with good cycling stability and high capacity is limited. Herein, a nanocomposite of hierarchical mesoporous iron fluoride and reduced graphene oxide is prepared by an in situ approach. The as-prepared nanocomposite exhibits remarkably high discharge specific capacity of 227.5 mAh/g at 0.1C. Specifically, the discharge specific capacity of the sample still remains 87.5 mAh/g at a high rate of 15C after the 100th cycle. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT) measurements show that the addition of reduced graphene oxide can effectively reduce the charge transfer resistance and enhance the Na⁺ diffusion rate in the FeF₃·0.33H₂O nanoparticles. The structural changes of FeF₃·0.33H₂O is further investigated by ex-situ XRD, XPS, and ex situ high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.

Keywords: cathode material; iron fluoride; nanocomposite; reduced graphene oxide; sodium-ion batteries.