Well-Dispersed Manganese-Oxo Clusters as Anode Materials for High-Performance Lithium Ion Batteries.

Zhang, Bitong; Qiu, Tianyu; Li, Yingqi; Li, Yang; Yu, Feiyang; Dong, Hongliang; Wang, Yong-Hui; Li, Yang-Guang et al. · Nano Lett · 2024

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Metal-oxo clusters show great promise in lithium ion battery applications as anode materials by virtue of their native nature of well-defined nanostructures and multielectron redox activities. However, their intrinsic unsatisfactory electrical conductivity and tendency to aggregation make them difficult to fully utilize. Herein, a well-dispersed Mn<sub>12</sub>O<sub>12</sub>(CH<sub>3</sub>COO)<sub>16</sub>(H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>4</sub> (denoted as Mn<sub>12</sub>) cluster is constructed by rationally adopting carbon dots (CDs) with nanosize and high conductivity as stabilizers. Thanks to the fully exposed redox sites of Mn<sub>12</sub> clusters and additional interfacial energy storage mechanism, the optimized Mn<sub>12</sub>/CDs-1:20 anode delivers a high specific capacity of 1643 mAh g<sup>-1</sup> at 0.2 A g<sup>-1</sup> (0.25 C) and exhibits outstanding rate and cycling capabilities. This paper provides a green and efficient paradigm to synthesize well-dispersed manganese-oxo clusters for the first time and builds a new platform for cluster-based energy storage.