Storage of Lithium-Ion by Phase Engineered MoO₃ Homojunctions

Abstract

With high theoretical specific capacity, the low-cost MoO3 is known to be a promising anode for lithium-ion batteries. However, low electronic conductivity and sluggish reaction kinetics have limited its ability for lithium ion storage. To improve this, the phase engineering approach is used to fabricate orthorhombic/monoclinic MoO3 (α/h-MoO3) homojunctions. The α/h-MoO3 is found to have excessive hetero-phase interface. This not only creates more active sites in the MoO3 for Li+ storage, it regulates local coordination environment and electronic structure, thus inducing a built-in electric field for boosting electron/ion transport. In using α/h-MoO3, higher capacity (1094 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1) and rate performance (406 mAh g−1 at 5.0 A g−1) are obtained than when using only the single phase h-MoO3 or α-MoO3. This work provides an option to use α/h-MoO3 hetero-phase homojunction in LIBs.

Keywords

• anode materials
• phase engineering
• molybdenum trioxide
• homojunctions
• lithium-ion storage