The Promise and Challenge of Phosphorus-Based Composites as Anode Materials for Potassium-Ion Batteries

Potassium-ion batteries (KIBs) are a core energy storage device that can meet the need for scalable and affordable stationary applications because they use low-cost and earth-abundant potassium. In addition, KIB shares a similar storage mechanism with current Li-ion batteries. As the key to optimizing a battery's performance, the development of high-performance electrode materials helps to increase the feasibility of KIB technology. In this sense, phosphorus-based materials (i.e., phosphorus and metal phosphide) with high theoretical capacity and low redox potential tick all the right boxes as a material of choice. A rapid glimpse at recent studies on phosphorus-based anode materials for advanced KIBs is provided, covering the synthetic methods, reaction mechanisms, electrochemical properties, and performances. In addition, several promising strategies are highlighted to address the imminent challenges faced by phosphorus-based anode materials, hoping to cast an insightful outlook for possible future direction in this field.