Top-down tailoring of nanostructured manganese molybdate enhances its lithium storage properties

Abstract

Binary transition metal oxide manganese molybdate is progressively tailored by a facile top-down strategy using dopamine as scissors. Aggregated micron-whisker structures are successfully converted to nanospheres in the aqueous phase at room temperature, whose morphology evolution is witnessed by the direct observation of scanning electron microscopy. Meanwhile, nitrogen-doped carbon is introduced to the composite after a facile and controllable annealing treatment. Benefiting from the structure tailoring and surface modification, the formed manganese molybdate/nitrogen-doped carbon composites exhibit highly reversible capacity and excellent long-term cycling stability when evaluated as anodes for lithium ion batteries. It is believed that this facile top-down strategy of synchronously regulating structures and surface properties will inspire the variation of structural design in other metal molybdate/carbon composites.