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Covalent interfacial coupling of vanadium nitride with nitrogen-rich carbon textile boosting its lithium storage performance as binder-free anode

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Abstract

Eliminating the usage of metal current collectors and binders in traditional battery electrode configuration is an effective strategy to significantly improve the capacities of lithium ion batteries (LIBs). Herein, we demonstrate the construction of porous vanadium nitride (VN) nanosheet network in situ grown on nitrogen-rich (N-rich) carbon textile (N-C@P-VN) as lightweight and binder-free anode for LIBs. The N-rich carbon textile is used both as the current collector and host to store Li+, thus improving the specific capacities of binder-free VN anode and meanwhile reducing the inert mass of the whole cell. Moreover, the open spaces in carbon textile and vertically aligned pores in VN nanosheet network can not only provide an expressway for Li+ and e− transport, but also afford more active sites. As a result, the binder-free N-C@P-VN anode maintains a specific capacity of 1,040 mAh·g−1 (or an areal capacity of 2.6 mAh·cm−2) after 100 cycles at 0.1 mA·cm−2 in half cell. Moreover, in an assembled N-C@P-VN//LiFePO4 full cell, it exhibits an areal capacity of 1.7 mAh·cm−2 after 300 cycles at 0.1 C. The synergistic strategy of N-C substrate and porous VN network could be applied to guide rational design of similar N-C@nitride or sulfide hybrid systems with corresponding sulfur-doped carbon textile as the substrate.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21872008), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing, China (No. 2212019) and Beijing Institute of Technology Research Fund Program for Young Scholars (Nos. 3100011182019 and 3100011182128). We would also thank the Analysis & Testing Center of Beijing Institute of Technology measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Di Zhao, Jinwen Qin, Jie Wang & Minhua Cao

  2. Institute of High Energy Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Lirong Zheng

  3. Key Laboratory of Function-oriented Porous Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang, 471934, China

    Donglei Guo

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  1. Di Zhao
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  2. Jinwen Qin
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Correspondence to Minhua Cao.

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Covalent interfacial coupling of vanadium nitride with nitrogen-rich carbon textile boosting its lithium storage performance as binder-free anode

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Zhao, D., Qin, J., Zheng, L. et al. Covalent interfacial coupling of vanadium nitride with nitrogen-rich carbon textile boosting its lithium storage performance as binder-free anode. Nano Res. 14, 4336–4346 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3853-6

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