Facile fabrication of a vanadium nitride/carbon fiber composite for half/full sodium-ion and potassium-ion batteries with long-term cycling performance

Abstract

Vanadium-based composite anodes have been designed for applications in alkali metal ion batteries, including lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) and potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). However, the problems of inferior long-term cycling stability caused by the large volume change and dissolution of vanadium-based active materials during cycles and slow diffusion for large radii of Na⁺ and K⁺ still limit their underlying capability and need to be addressed. In the present work, we initially designed and fabricated a vanadium nitride/carbon fiber (VN/CNF) composite via a facile electrospinning method followed by the ammonization process. The obtained VN/CNF composite anode exhibited excellent half/full sodium and potassium storage performance. When used as an anode material for SIBs, it delivered a high capacity of 403 mA h g⁻¹ at 0.1 A g⁻¹ after 100 cycles and as large as 237 mA h g⁻¹ at 2 A g⁻¹ even after 4000 cycles with negligible capacity fading. More importantly, the VN/CNFs//Na₃V₂(PO₄)₃ full cell by coupling the VN/CNF composite anode with the Na₃V₂(PO₄)₃ (NVP) cathode also exhibited a desirable capacity of 257 mA h g⁻¹ at 500 mA g⁻¹ after 50 cycles. Besides, when further evaluated as an anode for PIBs, the VN/CNF composite anode achieved a large capacity of 266 mA h g⁻¹ after 200 cycles at 0.1 A g⁻¹ and maintained a stable capacity of 152 mA h g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹ even after 1000 cycles, showing significant long-term cycling stability. This is one of the best performances of vanadium-based anode materials for SIBs and PIBs reported so far.