Well-Dispersed Manganese-Oxo Clusters as Anode Materials for High-Performance Lithium Ion Batteries

Metal-oxo clusters show great promise in lithium ion battery applications as anode materials by virtue of their native nature of well-defined nanostructures and multielectron redox activities. However, their intrinsic unsatisfactory electrical conductivity and tendency to aggregation make them difficult to fully utilize. Herein, a well-dispersed Mn₁₂O₁₂(CH₃COO)₁₆(H₂O)₄ (denoted as Mn₁₂) cluster is constructed by rationally adopting carbon dots (CDs) with nanosize and high conductivity as stabilizers. Thanks to the fully exposed redox sites of Mn₁₂ clusters and additional interfacial energy storage mechanism, the optimized Mn₁₂/CDs-1:20 anode delivers a high specific capacity of 1643 mAh g^-1 at 0.2 A g^-1 (0.25 C) and exhibits outstanding rate and cycling capabilities. This paper provides a green and efficient paradigm to synthesize well-dispersed manganese-oxo clusters for the first time and builds a new platform for cluster-based energy storage.