Investigation of α-MnO2 Tunneled Structures as Model Cation Hosts for Energy Storage

Future advances in energy storage systems rely on identification of appropriate target materials and deliberate synthesis of the target materials with control of their physiochemical properties in order to disentangle the contributions of distinct properties to the functional electrochemistry. This goal demands systematic inquiry using model materials that provide the opportunity for significant synthetic versatility and control. Ideally, a material family that enables direct manipulation of characteristics including composition, defects, and crystallite size while remaining within the defined structural framework would be necessary. Accomplishing this through direct synthetic methods is desirable to minimize the complicating effects of secondary processing. The structural motif most frequently used for insertion type electrodes is based on layered type structures where ion diffusion in two dimensions can be envisioned. However, lattice expansion and contraction associated with the ion movement and electron transfer as a result of repeated charge and discharge cycling can result in structural degradation and amorphization with accompanying loss of capacity. In contrast, tunnel type structures embody a more rigid framework where the inherent structural design can accommodate the presence of cations and often multiple cations. Of specific interest are manganese oxides as they can exhibit a tunneled structure, termed α-MnO2, and are an important class of nanomaterial in the fields of catalysis, adsorption-separation, and ion-exchange. The α-MnO2 structure has one-dimensional 2 × 2 tunnels formed by corner and edge sharing manganese octahedral [MnO6] units and can be readily substituted in the central tunnel by a variety of cations of varying size. Importantly, α-MnO2 materials possess a rich chemistry with significant synthetic versatility allowing deliberate synthetic control of structure, composition, crystallite size, and defect content. This Account considers the investigation of α-MnO2 tunnel type structures and their electrochemistry. Examination of the reported findings on this material family demonstrates that multiple physiochemical properties influence the electrochemistry. The retention of the parent structure during charge and discharge cycling, the material composition including the identity and content of the central cation, the surface condition including oxygen vacancies, and crystallite size have all been demonstrated to impact electrochemical function. The selection of the α-MnO2 family of materials as a model system and the ability to control the variables associated with the structural family affirm that full investigation of the mechanisms related to active materials in an electrochemical system demands concerted efforts in synthetic material property control and multimodal characterization, combined with theory and modeling. This then enables more complete understanding of the factors that must be controlled to achieve consistent and desirable outcomes.