The cathode capacity of common lithium ion batteries (LIBs) using inorganic electrodes and liquid electrolytes must be further improved. Alternatively, all-solid-state lithium batteries comprising the electrode of organic compounds can offer much higher capacity. Herein, we successfully fabricated an all-solid-state lithium battery based on organic pillar[5]quinone (C35H20O10) cathode and composite polymer electrolyte (CPE). The poly(methacrylate) (PMA)/poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-LiClO4-3 wt % SiO2 CPE has an optimum ionic conductivity of 0.26 mS cm(-1) at room temperature. Furthermore, pillar[5]quinine cathode in all-solid-state battery rendered an average operation voltage of ∼2.6 V and a high initial capacity of 418 mAh g(-1) with a stable cyclability (94.7% capacity retention after 50 cycles at 0.2C rate) through the reversible redox reactions of enolate/quinonid carbonyl groups, showing favorable prospect for the device application with high capacity.
Tungsten ditellurium (WTe) is one of most important layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and exhibits various prominent physical properties. All the present methods for WTe preparation need strict conditions such as high temperature or cannot be applied in large scale, which limits its practical applications. In addition, most studies on WTe focus on its physical properties, whereas its electrochemical properties are still illusive with little investigation. Here, we develop a facile and scalable two-step method to synthesize high-quality WTe nanoribbon crystals with 1T' Weyl semimetal phase for the first time. Highly crystalline 1T'-WTe nanoribbons can be obtained on a large scale through this two-step method. In addition, the electrochemical tests show that WTe nanoribbons exhibit smaller overpotential and much better hydrogen evolution reaction catalytic performance than other tungsten-based sulfide and selenide (WS, WSe) nanoribbons of same morphology and under same preparation conditions. WTe nanoribbons show a Tafel slope of 57 mV/dec, which is one of best values for TMD catalysts and about 2 and 4 times smaller than that for 2H-WS nanoribbons (135 mV/dec) and 2H-WSe nanoribbons (213 mV/dec), respectively. 1T'-WTe nanoribbons also show ultrahigh stability in 5000 cycles and 20 h at 10 mA/cm. The better performance is attributed to high conductivity of semimetallic 1T'-phase-stable WTe nanoribbons with one or two order higher charge-transfer rate than normally semiconducting 2H-stable WS and WSe nanoribbons. These results open the door for electrochemical applications of Weyl semimetallic TMDs.
Highly crystalline semimetallic 1T′ WTe 2 nanorods (WTe 2 NRs) and WTe 2 nanoflowers (WTe 2 NFs) are applied as anode materials for the sodium ion battery (SIB) for the first time. WTe 2 NRs and NFs are synthesized through a novel twostep process with hydrothermal-derived WO 3 transformed into WTe 2 NRs and NFs after a chemical vapor deposition process. The performance of the WTe 2 SIB anode is highly influenced by WTe 2 morphology. WTe 2 NRs have shown high capacity in sodium ion storage, with an excellent rate and cycling stability. The initial discharge capacity for WTe 2 NRs is 442 mA h g −1 at the current density of 0.1 A g −1 and remains at 221 mA h g −1 after 100 cycles, while WTe 2 NFs show 324 mA h g −1 initial capacity and remain at 260 mA h g −1 after 40 cycles. The Coulombic efficiencies of both WTe 2 NR and NF anodes are as high as 98.83 and 97.96% from the second cycle, respectively.
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