Interface-Driven Pseudocapacitance Endowing Sandwiched CoSe2/N-Doped Carbon/TiO2 Microcubes with Ultra-Stable Sodium Storage and Long-Term Cycling Stability

Cobalt diselenide (CoSe2) has drawn great concern as an anode material for sodium-ion batteries due to its considerable theoretical capacity. Nevertheless, the poor cycling stability and rate performance still impede its practical implantation. Here, CoSe2/nitrogen-doped carbon-skeleton hybrid microcubes with a TiO2 layer (denoted as TNC-CoSe2) are favorably prepared via a facile template-engaged strategy, in which a TiO2-coated Prussian blue analogue of Co-3[Co(CN)(6)](2) is used as a new precursor accompanied with a selenization procedure. Such structures can concurrently boost ion and electron diffusion kinetics and inhibit the structural degradation during cycling through the close contact between the TiO2 layer and NC-CoSe2. Besides, this hybrid structure promotes the superior Na-ion intercalation pseudocapacitance due to the well- designed interfaces. The as-prepared TNC-CoSe2 microcubes exhibit a superior cycling capability (511 mA h at 0.2 A g(-1) after 200 cycles) and long cycling life (456 mA h at 6.4 A g(-1) for 6000 cycles with a retention of 92.7%). Coupled with a sodium vanadium fluorophosphate (Na3V2(PO4)(2)F-3)@C cathode, this assembled full cell displays a specific capacity of 281 mA h g(-1) at 0.2 A g(-1) for 100 cycles. This work can be potentially used to improve other metal selenide-based anodes for rechargeable batteries.

Automated summary

This study successfully prepared CoSe2/nitrogen-doped carbon-skeleton hybrid microcubes with a TiO2 layer, which exhibited superior cycling performance and long cycling life. The research provides a new approach to enhance the battery performance of metal selenide-based anodes.