Biochemistry-Enabled 3D Foams for Ultrafast Battery Cathodes

Abstract

Metal vanadium phosphates (MVP), particularly Li3V2(PO4)3 (LVP) and Na3V2(PO4)3 (NVP), are regarded as the next-generation cathode materials in lithium/sodium ion batteries. These materials possess desirable properties such as high stability, theoretical capacity, and operating voltages. Yet, low electrical/ionic conductivities of LVP and NVP have limited their applications in demanding devices such as electric vehicles. In this work, a novel synthesis route for the preparation of LVP/NVP micro/mesoporous 3D foams via assembly of elastin-like polypeptides is demonstrated. The as-synthesized MVP 3D foams consist of microporous networks of mesoporous nanofibers, where the surfaces of individual fibers are covered with MVP nanocrystallites. TEM images further reveal that LVP/NVP nanoparticles are about 100-200 nm in diameter, with each particle enveloped by a 5 nm thick carbon shell. The MVP 3D foams prepared in this work exhibit ultrafast rate capabilities (79 mA h g(-1) at 100C and 66 mA h g(-1) at 200C for LVP 3D foams; 73 mA h g(-1) at 100C and 51 mA h g(-1) at 200C for NVP 3D foams) and excellent cycle performance (almost 100% performance retention after 1000 cycles at 100C); their properties are far superior compared to current state-of-the-art active materials.

Carbon wrapped hierarchical Li3V2(PO4)3 microspheres for high performance lithium ion batteries

“…The electrochemical impedance spectrum (Supplementary Figure S9) simulation result shows that the charge transfer resistance of the CW-LVP electrode is only 85.5 Ohm, which is much lower than 500 Ohm of the LVP particle electrode without using PVP in the fabrication process. The superior rate performance and cycling stability is much better than the previously reported electrodes (see Supplementary Table S1)143738394044464748. Although the carbon content in CW-LVP is a little high for practical application, the bicontinuous carbon in the CW-LVP is considered to be a better conducting material than the common discontinuous acetylene black for cathode.…”

“…Three intensive pairs of redox peaks are detected on the CV curves at various scan rates, suggesting the good reversibility and stability of the CW-LVP electrode. The detection of multiple peaks at 3.63, 3.72 and 4.14 V during the anodic scan of 0.1 mV s −1 show that the multi-step lithium extraction process and the phases change from Li 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 to Li 2.5 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 , Li 2 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 and to LiV 2 (PO 4 ) 3 , respectively37383940. And the three cathodic peaks at 3.99, 3.62, and 3.54 V are attributed to lithium insertion process, and the phases change in reverse, respectively.…”

“…employed a hydrothermal-pyrolytic process to fabricate Li 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 /C hierarchical nanowires, which exhibit superior cycling stability with a capacity retention of 80% after 3000 cycles at 5C rate. Zhou et al 40. reported the synthesis of Li 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 nanoparticles within the three-dimensional hierarchical carbon foam, exhibiting outstanding rate capability.…”

Chemical Synthesis of 3D Graphene‐Like Cages for Sodium‐Ion Batteries Applications

“…Among these, sodium (Na) super ion conductor (NASICON) structured Na 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 (NVP) is a good candidate cathode material due to its excellent structural stability, good thermal stability, and high energy density. [35][36][37] Zhou et al reported template-assisted synthesis of nanostructured NVP 3D foams, which exhibit a capacity of 73 mA h g −1 at a rate of 100 C. [35] An et al prepared NVP/C nanoflakes with high rate capability and excellent cycling stability. However, similar to other polyanion compounds (i.e., Li 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 and K 3 V 2 (PO 4 ) 3 ), [33,34] NVP suffers from intrinsically inferior electronic conductivity (about 10 −9 S cm −1 ).…”

Nature‐Inspired Electrochemical Energy‐Storage Materials and Devices

“…[127][128][129][130][131] It has been known that genetically engineered molecules can interact with metallic precursors under mild conditions and create inorganic nanostructures with precise shape, size, and phase control. [132] Thus, biological molecules and organisms including polysaccharides, proteins, viruses, DNA, peptides have been employed to prepare nanomaterials for energy storage application. [133][134][135] Among many different kinds of organic templates for nanomaterial fabrications, M13 viruses have been paid special attention because of their unique properties such as a high aspect ratio of geometry with diameter around 6 nm and length about 880 nm, genetic tunability of surface protein, and easy replicability.…”