Natural ore molybdenite as a high-capacity and cheap anode material for advanced lithium-ion capacitors

Hybrid lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) receive special interests because they work by combining the merits of high-capacity lithium-ion batteries and high-rate capacitors in a Li salt containing electrolyte, so as to bridge the gap between the two devices. One of main challenges for LICs is to develop inexpensive and superior anode materials at high rates. In this work, natural molybdenite was utilized as precursor to achieve the scalable production of cheap MoS₂/carbon composites. This molybdenite-derived MoS₂/carbon electrode can not only exhibit excellent Li⁺-storage performances including ultrahigh specific capacity (1427 mAh g^-1after 1000 cycles at 1 A g^-1) and rate capability (554 mAh g^-1at 10 A g^-1), but also possess four-times higher tap density than that of commercial graphite. By employing MoS₂/carbon as the anode and activated carbon as the cathode, the as-assembled LIC device delivers both high energy//high power density and long cycle lifespan. Furthermore, the price is nearly 200 orders of magnitude lower than the traditional high-purity chemicals, which can be easily scaled up to achieve high-throughput production.