MoO_x nanoparticles anchored on N-doped porous carbon as Li-ion battery electrode

Transition-metal oxides based materials have recently been shown to be promising anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) application to replace graphite material. In the present work, highly dispersed ultra-small MoO_x nanoparticles anchored on N-doped three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous carbon (3D-MoO_x@CN) are prepared on the basis of an efficient in-situ chelating and hard-templating strategy. The MoO_x nanoparticles with particle sizes between 1.5 and 3.5 nm are observed to be anchored on the surface of the 3D N-doped carbon. The 3D-MoO_x@CN composite anode electrode exhibits several appealing characteristics for lithium ion storage, including high specific capacity, good stability against cycling and fast charge transport kinetics. An optimized 3D-MoO_x@CN sample (3D-MoO_x@CN-700) delivers specific capacities of 742 mAh g⁻¹ at current density of 100 mA g⁻¹ and 431 mAh g⁻¹ at 1000 mA g⁻¹ after 1000 cycles, respectively. The observed excellent performance is due to the unique hierarchical pore structure with strong binding of the ultra-small MoO_x nanoparticles onto N-doped carbon surface, which can avoid the agglomeration and alleviate the volume expansion of MoO_x nanoparticles in the charge-discharge process. The composite electrode material described in this work holds a great potential for the development of high-performance lithium-ion batteries. Meanwhile, the synthesis method presents a common strategy to prepare other composite materials with highly dispersed metal oxide on the hierarchically porous carbon materials.