Interface engineering of metal sulfides-based composites enables high-performance anode materials for sodium-ion batteries

Abstract

Metal sulfides (MSs) have attracted much attention as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) due to their high sodium storage capacity. However, the unsatisfactory electrochemical performance induced by the huge volume change and sluggish kinetics hampered the practical application of SIBs. Herein, guided by the heterostructure interface engineering, novel multicomponent metal sulfide-based anodes, including SnS, FeS, and Fe₃N embedded in N-doped carbon nanosheets (SnS/FeS/Fe₃N/NC NSs), have been synthesized for high-performance SIBs. The as-prepared SnS/FeS/Fe₃N/NC NSs with abundant heterointerfaces and high conductivity of N-doped carbon nanosheet matrix can shorten the Na⁺ diffusion path and promote reaction kinetics during the sodiation/desodiation process. Moreover, the presence of Fe₃N can promote the reversible conversion of SnS and FeS during the cycling process. As a consequence, when evaluated as anode materials for SIBs, the SnS/FeS/Fe₃N/NC NSs can maintain a high sodium storage capacity of 473.6 mAh g^-1 after 600 cycles at 2.0 A g^-1 and can still provide a high reversible capacity of 537.4 mAh g^-1 even at 5.0 A g^-1 This discovery offers a novel strategy for constructing metal sulfide-based anode materials for high-performance SIBs.

Keywords: Heterostructure; Interface engineering; Reaction kinetics; SnS; Sodium ion batteries.