Improving the Reaction Kinetics by Annealing MoS₂/PVP Nanoflowers for Sodium-Ion Storage

Under the ever-growing demand for electrochemical energy storage devices, developing anode materials with low cost and high performance is crucial. This study established a multiscale design of MoS₂/carbon composites with a hollow nanoflower structure (MoS₂/C NFs) for use in sodium-ion batteries as anode materials. The NF structure consists of several MoS₂ nanosheets embedded with carbon layers, considerably increasing the interlayer distance. Compared with pristine MoS₂ crystals, the carbon matrix and hollow-hierarchical structure of MoS₂/C exhibit higher electronic conductivity and optimized thermodynamic/kinetic potential for the migration of sodium ions. Hence, the synthesized MoS₂/C NFs exhibited an excellent capacity of 1300 mA h g^-1 after 50 cycles at a current density of 0.1 A g^-1 and 630 mA h g^-1 at 2 A g^-1 and high-capacity retention at large charge/discharge current density (80% after 600 cycles 2 A g^-1). The suggested approach can be adopted to optimize layered materials by embedding layered carbon matrixes. Such optimized materials can be used as electrodes in sodium-ion batteries, among other electrochemical applications.