Facile synthesis of a novel Al-based composite as an anode for lithium-ion batteries

A facile ball-milling method is developed to synthesize an Al/MoS2/C composite, which can be used for scalable industrial mass production. The composite is characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), galvanostatic cycling and cyclic voltammetry. The electrochemical measurements demonstrate that the Al/MoS2/C composite has a greatly improved electrochemical performance in comparison with pure Al. After 40 cycles, the capacity retentions of Al-40 wt%, Al-50 wt% and Al-60 wt% are 451.3 mA h g(-1), 419.6 mA h g(-1) and 378.2 mA h g(-1), respectively. This improved electrochemical performance may be attributed to the layer-structure MoS2/C composite which can not only buffer the volume change but also provide capacity stability for the composite during the charge and discharge process. This suggests that the Al/MoS2/C composite has a potential possibility to be developed as an anode material for LIBs.