Antimony-Graphite Composites for a High-Performance Potassium-Ion Battery

Antimony-based electrodes have great application prospects for high-power potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) due to their low platform and high capacity, while suffering from limited cycle stability and severe pulverization phenomenon. Herein, commercial graphite and antimony powder are utilized to prepare antimony-graphite composites via ball-milling along with ultrasonic processing. As a result, the antimony-cluster can embed into the graphite layer and form antimony interspersed graphite composites, which is beneficial to accommodate the volume expansion and degeneration phenomenon of antimony. Consequently, the antimony-graphite composite can deliver high-reversible capacity (524 mA h g(-1) at 50 mA g(-1)), superior capacity retention (96.8% after 100 cycles), and an excellent rate performance (340 mA h g(-1) at 1000 mA g(-1)). This work paves the way to design high-performance alloy-type anode materials for PIBs.