Hydrothermal synthesis and electrochemical properties of α-MoO3 nanobelts used as cathode materials for Li-ion batteries

Uniform alpha-MoO3 nanobelts were successfully synthesized by the hydrothermal process at 180 degrees C for 20 h of the acidic solutions with different pH values of 0-0.75, adjusted using HCl (conc.). XRD and SEM results revealed that the pH of the precursor solutions played an important role in the phase, impurities, and morphology of the products. At the pH = 0, the perfect alpha-MoO3 nanobelts with a few tens of microns long were synthesized. By the TEM characterization, orthorhombic MoO3 has a distinctive layered structure along the [010] direction, consisting of distorted MoO6 octahedrons connected by common corners along the [100] direction and common edges along the [001] direction. The electrochemical measurement showed that the alpha-MoO3 nanobelts have high specific charge capacity.