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Confining ultrafine Li3P nanoclusters in porous carbon for high-performance lithium-ion battery anode

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Abstract

High-capacity lithium-containing alloy anodes (e.g., Li4.4Si, Li4.4Sn, and Li3P) enable lithium-free cathodes (e.g., Sulfur, V2O5, and FeF3) to produce next-generation lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with high energy density. Herein, we design a Li3P/C nanocomposite with Li3P ultrafine nanodomains embedded in micrometer-scale porous carbon particles. Benefiting from the unique micro/nanostructure of the Li3P/C nanocomposite, electrons transfer rapidly through the conductive pathway provided by the porous carbon framework and the volume change between Li3P and P is confined in the nanopores of the carbon, which avoids the collapse of the whole Li3P/C composite particles. As expected, the as-achieved Li3P/C nanocomposite provided a high available lithium-ion capacity of 791 mAh/g (calculated based on the mass of Li3P/C) at 0.1 C during the initial delithiation process. Meanwhile, the Li3P/C nanocomposite showed 75% of its 0.5 C capacity at 6 C and stable cycling stability.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51802105) and Innovation Fund of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics. E. M. acknowledges support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HUST: 2019JYCXJJ014). The authors would like to thank the Analytical and Testing Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology as well as the Center for Nanoscale Characterization & Devices of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics for providing the facilities to conduct the characterization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Eryang Mao, Wenyu Wang, Mintao Wan & Yongming Sun

  2. Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Li Wang & Xiangming He

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  1. Eryang Mao
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  2. Wenyu Wang
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  3. Mintao Wan
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  4. Li Wang
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  5. Xiangming He
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  6. Yongming Sun
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Correspondence to Li Wang or Yongming Sun.

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Mao, E., Wang, W., Wan, M. et al. Confining ultrafine Li3P nanoclusters in porous carbon for high-performance lithium-ion battery anode. Nano Res. 13, 1122–1126 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2756-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2756-2

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