High-Capacity and Ultra-Long-Life Mg-Metal Batteries Enabled by Intercalation-Conversion Hybrid Cathode Materials

The advancement of rechargeable Mg-metal batteries (RMBs) is severely impeded by the lack of suitable cathode materials. Despite the good cyclic stability of intercalation-type compounds, their specific capacity is relatively low. Conversely, the conversion-type cathodes can deliver a higher capacity but often suffer from poor cycling reversibility and stability. Herein, a WSe₂/Se intercalation-conversion hybrid material with elemental Se uniformly distributed into WSe₂ nanosheets is fabricated via a simple solvothermal method for high-performance RMBs. The uniformly introduced Se confined in WSe₂ nanosheets can not only efficiently improve the conductivity of the hybrid cathodes, facilitating the fast electron transport and ion diffusion, but also provide additional specific capacity. Besides, the WSe₂ can effectively inhibit the detrimental Se dissolution and polyselenide shuttle, thereby activating the activity of Se and improving its utilization. Consequently, the synergy of intercalation and conversion mechanisms endows WSe₂/Se hybrids with superior reversible capacity of 252 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 A g^-1 and ultra-long cyclability of up to 5000 cycles at 2.0 A g^-1 with capacity retention of 78.1%. This work demonstrates the feasibility of the strategy by integrating intercalation and conversion mechanisms for developing high-performance cathode materials for RMBs.