Highly Reversible Lithium-ions Storage of Molybdenum Dioxide Nanoplates for High Power Lithium-ion Batteries

Herein, MoO2 nanoplates have been facilely prepared through a hydrothermal process by using MoO3 microbelts as the intercalation host. The obtained MoO2 nanoplates manifest excellent electrochemical properties when the discharge cutoff voltage is simply set at 1.0 V to preclude the occurrence of conversion reactions. Its initial reversible capacity reaches 251 mAhg(-1), which is larger than that of Li4Ti5O12, at a current rate of 0.2 C. The average capacity decay is only 0.0465 mAhg(-1) per cycle, with a coulombic efficiency of 99.5% (from the 50th cycle onward) for 2000 cycles at 1 C. Moreover, this MoO2 electrode demonstrates an outstanding high power performance. When the current rate is increased from 0.2 to 50 C, about 54% of the capacity is retained. The superior electrochemical performance can be attributed to the metallic conductivity of MoO2, short Li+ diffusion distance in the nanoplates, and reversible crystalline phase conversion of the addition-type reaction of MoO2. The prepared MoO2 nanoplates may hopefully replace their currently used analogues, such as Li4Ti5O12, in high power lithium-ion batteries.