Three dimensional carbon coated In2S3 nanowires assembled graphene composites as high performance sodium ion battery anode

It is still a great challenge to develop high performance anode materials for sodium ion battery (SIB) with high rate and long cycle. In this work, we try to use one step polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-induced method to prepare three dimensional (3D) carbon coated In2S3 nanowires assembled graphene composites as high performance SIB anode. PVA can successfully regulate and control the In2S3 structure from nanoparticles, nanosheets to nanowires. Under the adsorption of oxygen-containing functional groups of graphene skeleton, the presence of PVA backbone can also induce the 1D anisotropic growth of In2S3 nanowires. Meanwhile, the PVA layer also becomes a uniform carbon layer after carbonization and is coated on the outer surface of In2S3 nanowires. The as-prepared 3D carbon coated In2S3 nanowires assembled graphene composite electrode displays superior sodium storage performance, which can show a high reversible capacity of 509 mAh g(-1) and maintain the super stable reversible capacities of 360, 256 and 165 mAh g(-1) at 0.5, 2 and 6 A g(-1) for 1000 cycles, respectively, which can be attributed to the 3D porous graphene composite structure, homogeneous carbon coated on In2S3 nanowire surface and S doped in carbon structure edge sites enhancing pseudocapacitive contributions. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

This study successfully prepared high-performance SIB anode materials using PVA-induced method. The 3D carbon-coated In2S3 nanowires assembled graphene composite exhibited excellent sodium storage performance, attributed to the porous graphene structure, uniform carbon coating, and S doping in the carbon structure edge sites.