Deciphering the lithium storage chemistry in flexible carbon fiber‐based self‐supportive electrodes
Hao Yang,
Tuzhi Xiong,
Zhixiao Zhu,
Ran Xiao,
Xincheng Yao,
Yongchao Huang,
M.‐Sadeeq Balogun
Affiliations
Hao Yang
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan Joint International Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Technology for Clean Energy Hunan University Changsha People's Republic of China
Tuzhi Xiong
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan Joint International Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Technology for Clean Energy Hunan University Changsha People's Republic of China
Zhixiao Zhu
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan Joint International Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Technology for Clean Energy Hunan University Changsha People's Republic of China
Ran Xiao
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan Joint International Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Technology for Clean Energy Hunan University Changsha People's Republic of China
Xincheng Yao
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan Joint International Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Technology for Clean Energy Hunan University Changsha People's Republic of China
Yongchao Huang
Key Laboratory for Water Quality and Conservation of the Pearl River Delta, Institute of Environmental Research at Greater Bay, Ministry of Education Guangzhou University Guangzhou China
M.‐Sadeeq Balogun
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan Joint International Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Technology for Clean Energy Hunan University Changsha People's Republic of China
Abstract Flexible carbon fiber cloth (CFC) is an important scaffold and/or current collector for active materials in the development of flexible self‐supportive electrode materials (SSEMs), especially in lithium‐ion batteries. However, during the intercalation of Li ions into the matrix of CFC (below 0.5 V vs. Li/Li+), the incompatibility in the capacity of the CFC, when used directly as an anode material or as a current collector for active materials, leads to difficulty in the estimation of its actual contribution. To address this issue, we prepared Ni5P4 nanosheets on CFC (denoted CFC@Ni5P4) and investigated the contribution of CFC in the CFC@Ni5P4 by comparing to the powder Ni5P4 nanosheets traditionally coated on a copper foil (CuF) (denoted P‐Ni5P4). At a current density of 0.4 mA cm−2, the as‐prepared CFC@Ni5P4 showed an areal capacity of 7.38 mAh cm−2, which is significantly higher than that of the P‐Ni5P4 electrode. More importantly, theoretical studies revealed that the CFC has a high Li adsorption energy that contributes to the low Li‐ion diffusion energy barrier of the Ni5P4 due to the strong interaction between the CFC and Ni5P4, leading to the superior Li‐ion storage performance of the CFC@Ni5P4 over the pristine Ni5P4 sample. This present work unveils the underlying mechanism leading to the achievement of high performance in SSEMs.
