A Stable Conversion and Alloying Anode for Potassium‐Ion Batteries: A Combined Strategy of Encapsulation and Confinement

By Shijian Wang, P. Xiong, Xin Guo, Jinqiang Zhang, Xiaochun Gao, Fan Zhang, Xiaofu Tang, Phl Peter Notten, Guoxiu Wang. Advanced Functional Materials, 2020

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Potassium‐ion batteries based on conversion/alloying reactions have high potential applications in new‐generation large‐scale energy storage. However, their applications are hindered by inherent large‐volume variations and sluggish kinetics of the conversion/alloying‐type electrode materials during the repeated insertion and extraction of bulky K+ ions. Although some efforts have been focused on this issue, the reported potassium‐ion batteries still suffer from poor cycling lifespans. Here, a superior stable antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) anode is reported for high‐performance potassium‐ion batteries through a combined strategy of conductive encapsulation and 2D confinement. The Sb2Se3 nanorods are uniformly coated with a conductive N‐doped carbon layer and then confined between graphene nanosheets. The synergistic effects between conductive coating and confinement effectively buffer the large volumetric variation of the conversion/alloying anodes, which can maintain structural stability for superior cyclability. The as‐prepared anodes exhibit a high reversible specific capacity of ≈590 mA h g−1 and outstanding cycling stability over 350 cycles. In situ and ex situ characterizations reveal a high structural integration of the large‐volume‐change Sb2Se3 anodes during a reversible K storage mechanism of two‐step conversion and multistep alloying processes. This work can open up a new possibility for the design of stable conversion/alloying‐based anodes for high‐performance potassium‐ion batteries.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c668b3d239473a1ee4aab23109b16ad505edee85