Copper Phosphide Nanostructures Covalently Modified Ti₃ C₂ T_x for Fast Lithium-Ion Storage by Enhanced Kinetics and...

2D layer Ti₃ C₂ T_x material attracts enormous attention in lithium ion energy storage field owing to the unique surface chemistry properties, but the material still suffers from restacking issue and the restriction on capacity. Herein, copper phosphide (Cu₃ P) nanostructures@Ti₃ C₂ T_x composites are prepared by the in situ generation of Cu-BDC precursor in the bulk material followed with phosphorization. The uniformly distributed copper phosphide nanostructures effectively expand the interlayer spacing promoting the structural stability, and achieves the effective connection with the bulk material accelerating the diffusion and migration of lithium ions. The electrochemical activity of Cu₃ P also provides more lithium ion active sites for lithium storage. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis verifies that Ti─O─P bond with strong covalency allows the upper shift of maximum valence band and Fermi level, stimulating the charge transportation between Cu₃ P and the bulk Ti₃ C₂ T_x for better electrode kinetics. 3Cu₃ P@Ti₃ C₂ T_x exhibits excellent rate performance of 165.4 mAh g^-1 at 3000 mA g^-1 and the assembled 3Cu₃ P@Ti₃ C₂ T_x //AC Lithium-ion hybrid capacitorsLIC exhibits superior energy density of 93.0 Wh kg^-1 at the power density of 2367.3 W kg^-1 . The results suggest that the interfacial modification of Ti₃ C₂ T_x with transition metal phosphides will be advantageous to its high energy density application in lithium-ion storage.