Bilateral interfaces in In₂Se₃-CoIn₂-CoSe₂ heterostructures for high-rate reversible sodium storage

Abstract

Metal selenides are considered as a group of promising candidates as the anode material for sodium-ion batteries due to their high theoretical capacity. However, the intrinsically low electrical and ionic conductivities as well as huge volume change during the charge-discharge process give rise to an inferior sodium storage capability, which severely hinders their practical application. Herein, we fabricated In2Se3/CoSe2 hollow nanorods composed of In2Se3/CoIn2/CoSe2 by growing cobalt-based zeolitic imidazolate framework ZIF-67 on the surface of indium-based metal-organic framework MIL-68, followed by in situ gaseous selenization. Because of the CoIn2 alloy phase in between In2Se3 and CoSe2, a heterostructure consisting of two alloy/selenide interfaces has been successfully constructed, offering synergistically enhanced electrical conductivity, Na diffusion process, and structural stability, in comparison to the single CoIn2-free interface with only two metal selenides. As expected, this nanoconstruction delivers a high reversible capacity of 297.5 and 205.5 mAh g-1 at 5 and 10 A g-1 after 2000 cycles, respectively, and a superior rate performance of 371.6 mAh g-1 at even 20 A g-1.