LAUSR

Abstract Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have attracted much attention owing to their abundant resources, low cost, suitable energy density and low potential window. However, SIBs still suffer from poor charge transmission kinetics caused by large Na+ radius. Therefore, anode materials are considered as the key to the development of high-performance SIBs. Herein, hierarchical Sb2S3@m-Ti3C2Tx composites with Sb2S3 content of 40-60% were in-situ synthesized by a simple wet chemical method, in which amorphous spherical Sb2S3 particles with a size of 150-200 nm nucleate and grow uniformly on the surface of m-Ti3C2Tx with the formation of Ti-S bond. m-Ti3C2Tx, as a three-dimensional conductive skeleton, not only improved the electron and Na+ transportation, but also significantly inhibited the agglomeration and grain growth of Sb2S3 particles, promoted the electrolyte penetration, and effectively absorbed the volume expansion of Sb2S3 during charging and discharging cycles. As a result, the optimized 50% Sb2S3@m-Ti3C2Tx showed good rate ability and cycling performance, including a capacity of 156 mAh g-1 after 100 cycles at 0.1 A g-1 and 72 mAh g-1 after 1000 cycles at 2 A g-1 with only 0.37% attenuation per cycle. This work provided a simple and effective strategy for the design and construction of MXene-based hybrids as SIBs anode.