The rational design of hierarchical MoS2 nanosheet hollow spheres sandwiched between carbon and TiO2@graphite as an improved anode for lithium-ion batteries

Faze Wang; Fanggang Li; Maojun Zheng; Yanbo Li; Li Ma

doi:10.1039/c9na00019d

The rational design of hierarchical MoS₂ nanosheet hollow spheres sandwiched between carbon and TiO₂@graphite as an improved anode for lithium-ion batteries

Nanoscale Adv. 2019 Mar 20;1(5):1957-1964. doi: 10.1039/c9na00019d. eCollection 2019 May 15.

Authors

Faze Wang^{1

2

3}, Fanggang Li¹, Maojun Zheng¹, Yanbo Li², Li Ma⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Artificial Structure and Quantum Control, Ministry of Education, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200240 China mjzheng@sjtu.edu.cn.
² Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu 610054 China yanboli@uestc.edu.cn.
³ Walter Schottky Institut, Physik Department, Technische Universität München Garching 85748 Germany.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200240 China.

Abstract

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) shows high capacity but suffers from poor rate capability and rapid capacity decay, which greatly limit its practical applications in lithium-ion batteries. Herein, we successfully prepared MoS₂ nanosheet hollow spheres encapsulated into carbon and titanium dioxide@graphite, denoted as TiO₂@G@MoS₂@C, via hydrothermal and polymerization approaches. In this hierarchical architecture, the MoS₂ hollow sphere was sandwiched by graphite and an amorphous carbon shell; thus, TiO₂@G@MoS₂@C exhibited effectively enhanced electrical conductivity and withstood the volume changes; moreover, the aggregation and diffusion of the MoS₂ nanosheets were restricted; this advanced TiO₂@G@MoS₂@C fully combined the advantages of a three-dimensional architecture, hollow structure, carbon coating, and a mechanically robust TiO₂@graphite support, achieving improved specific capacity and long-term cycling stability. In addition, it exhibited the high reversible specific capacity of 823 mA h g^-1 at the current density of 0.1 A g^-1 after 100 cycles, retaining almost 88% of the initial reversible capacity with the high coulombic efficiency of 99%.