Electrochemical Properties of Nanostructured Copper Hydroxysulfate Mineral Brochantite upon Reaction with Lithium

Abstract

Cu-containing conversion electrodes have received much study as high capacity electrodes for lithium-ion batteries, but many suffer from poor reversibility. The electrochemical properties of the copper hydroxysulfate compound, Cu4(OH)6SO4, more commonly known as the mineral brochantite and as a patina constituent on the Statue of Liberty, were investigated. Nanostructured brochantite was synthesized using precipitation and microwave-assisted hydrothermal reactions and evaluated in half-cells with Li metal counter electrodes. Reversible capacities >400 mAh/g corresponding to the 2 electron reduction of Cu(2+) and discharge potential of 1.8 V versus Li/Li(+) were observed in brochantite with a nanoplate morphology. Detailed characterization using X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was performed to better understand the conversion process.

Chemobrionic Fabrication of Hierarchical Self‐Assembling Nanostructures of Copper Oxide and Hydroxide

“…The reflections at 14 ° , 23 ° , 27 ° , and 36 ° ( units) observed in both results can be assigned to crystals of . These crystals are consistent with the chemical analysis observed above in our microstructures, however our morphology is different to those recently reported . The reflections observed at 28.4 ° , 30.8 ° , 35.9 ° , 36.3 ° , and 58° (2 θ units) can be assigned to crystals of copper oxide, as in the mineral paramelaconite (PDF 03–0879).…”

“…Copper oxide nanostructures are becoming of increasing technological importance . Among a plethora of applications, nanoparticles and nanostructures formed of metal oxides such as CuO are of particular interest in nanotechnology as superconductors, as supercapacitors, as sensors and as battery anodes, in materials science as catalysts and as materials with enhanced photocatalytic properties and in pharmacology as antibacterial materials .…”

Evaluation of Low-cost Natrochalcite Na[Cu2(OH)(H2O)(SO4)2] as an Anode Material for Li- and Na-ion Batteries

“…LiOH, Li2SO4, etc formed an amorphous matrix [15]. While X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was unable to differentiate Cu and Cu + due to their very similar binding energies (932.3 eV vs. 932.4 eV) and peak widths [34][35], only high-resolution XRD using a synchrotron source was proved to be able to detect the discharge products of Cu-containing electrode materials [36].…”

“…While Fe 3+/2+ -SO4 2--based compounds have been widely investigated as cathodes toward Li + -and Na + insertion-extraction in LIBs and SIBs [8][9][10][11][12][13], less studied Cu 2+ -SO4 2--based compounds were revealed to have more versatile operation potentials. For example, the discharge potentials of one-dimensional (1D) CuSO45H2O [14] and the brochantite Cu4(SO4)(OH)6 of 3D structure [15] are around 3.0 V and 1.6 V (vs. Li + /Li) respectively, suggesting the potential of tuning the operation potentials via tuning the chemical compositions and structures. However, both compounds demonstrate fast capacity decay during cycling when used as electrode materials for LIBs.…”

Tailoring NiO Nanostructured Arrays by Sulfate Anions for Sodium‐Ion Batteries

“…Moreover, SO 4 2− ions can influence the crystal growth remarkably when it is being adsorbed on the growing facets, owing to the steric hindrance effect[8b] and strong bridging‐bidentate adsorption . As a result, various metal hydroxysulfate (e.g., Ni(SO 4 ) 0.3 (OH) 1.4 , Cu 4 (OH) 6 SO 4 , Co 5 (OH) 6 (SO 4 ) 2 (H 2 O) 4 , etc.) nanomaterials have been prepared as a family of layered hydroxides.…”