Fabrication of porous Ni3S2/Ni nanostructured electrode and its application in lithium ion battery

doi:10.1016/j.matchemphys.2011.12.077

Materials Chemistry and Physics

Volume 132, Issues 2–3, 15 February 2012, Pages 1103-1107

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchemphys.2011.12.077 Get rights and content

Abstract

Porous Ni₃S₂ nanostructured electrode that direct growth on Ni foam was synthesized via a simple hydrothermal approach. Galvanostatic battery testing shows that Ni₃S₂/Ni electrode exhibits initial discharge and charge capacity of 535 and 451 mAh g⁻¹ at a current density of 0.1 mA cm⁻². After 80 cycles, the discharge and charge capacity maintains at 403 and 398 mAh g⁻¹, respectively. The excellent performances of Ni₃S₂/Ni electrode are owing to the formation of new porous structure of Ni₃S₂ electrode during the cycle process, which are relevant to the favorable porous structure of Ni₃S₂ and its nanoflake morphology as well as direct growth of Ni₃S₂ on Ni foam.

Highlights

► Facile synthesis of porous Ni₃S₂/Ni nanostructured electrode. ► Formation of new porous structure in charge/discharge test. ► Excellent cycle performance.

Introduction

For many years, lithium ion batteries have always been the most utilized batteries in the portable electronic market because they possess of the highest energy density available from existing rechargeable battery techniques. However, their performance still lies behind the demands of high-power applications such as hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). Exploiting new types of electrode materials with high specific capacity especially the cathode materials has played one of the most important roles in the development of lithium ion batteries.

Transition metal oxides are promising anode materials for high performance lithium ion batteries owing to their high theoretical capacity (500–1000 mAh g⁻¹) that based on a novel reaction mechanism [1], [2], [3]. Such conversion reactions turn out not to be specific to oxides but can be extended to sulfides, nitrides, or fluorides, and offer numerous opportunities to lead to impressive capacity gains [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. Nickel sulfides as cathode materials of lithium ion batteries have been reported, which show attractive electrochemical properties [9], [10], [11]. Recently, Lai et al. reported the fabrication of Ni₂S₃ nanowires arrays on Ni substrate using sulfur as sulfuration source in the presence of hydrazine and NaOH, which show good electrochemical performance due to the one-dimensional morphology of Ni₂S₃ and direct growth of Ni₂S₃ on Ni current collector [12]. However, they did not research the morphology variation of Ni₂S₃ during the charge and discharge process, thus it is not really clear what is the causing of such good electrochemical performance. Here we use a simple hydrothermal method to fabricate porous Ni₃S₂ nanostructured electrode direct growth on Ni foam. It is known that the morphology and size of transition metal oxides change during the cycle process, which can be extend to sulfides because they possess similar conversion reactions [1], [13], [14]. In this paper, the morphology of the tested Ni₃S₂/Ni electrode is characterized for further clarifying its electrochemical behavior, which shows newly formed porous structure, resulting in excellent cycle performance.

Section snippets

Experimental

All the chemicals were analytical grade and purchased from Shanghai Chemical Reagents. In a typical procedure, 5 mmol thiourea was dissolved in 20 ml distilled water. After stirring for 20 min, the transparent solution was transferred into a 50 ml teflonlined autoclave, distilled water was subsequently added to 80% of its capacity. Then Ni foam was placed in the autoclave and placed in a vacuum oven, heated at 120 °C for 4 h. The resulting Ni foam finally was dried in an oven at 60 °C for 24 h. The

Results and discussion

Typical XRD pattern of the as-prepared electrode is shown in Fig. 1(a). The diffraction peaks located at 44.4°, 51.7° and 76.4° (marked with *) can be assigned to Ni (1 1 1), (2 0 0) and (2 2 0) faces of Ni foam (04-0850), respectively. Diffraction peaks except those of Ni can be indexed as hexagonal Ni₃S₂ with lattice constant a = 5.745 Å and c = 7.135 Å, which are in good agreement with JCPDS, No. 44-1418. Strong and sharp peaks suggest that the active Ni₃S₂ is well crystallized and of adequate quantity.

Conclusions

In conclusion, porous Ni₃S₂/Ni nanostructured electrode was synthesized via a simple hydrothermal approach. During the charge and discharge process, Ni₃S₂/Ni electrode forms a new three-dimensional porous architecture owing to the favorable porous structure and flake-like morphology of Ni₃S₂ as well as fine electric contact between Ni₃S₂ and Ni foam, resulting in high capacity and excellent cycle performance. The results indicate that the electrochemical performance of Ni₃S₂ can be evidently

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 50972075), Excellent Youth Foundation of Hubei Scientific Committee (2011CDA093) and Education Office of Hubei Province (Q20111209). Moreover, the authors are grateful to Dr. Jianlin Li at Three Gorges University for his kind support to our research.

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Fabrication of porous Ni3S2/Ni nanostructured electrode and its application in lithium ion battery

Abstract

Highlights

Introduction

Section snippets

Experimental

Results and discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Electrochem. Commun.

C. R. Chim.

J. Alloys Compd.

Electrochem. Commun.

J. Power Sources

J. Power Sources

J. Power Sources

Electrochem. Commun.

Nature

Adv. Mater.

Fabrication of porous Ni₃S₂/Ni nanostructured electrode and its application in lithium ion battery