Interlayer spacing engineering in N doped MoS2 for efficient lithium ion storage

MoS2 has been intensively studied as a promising anode material for high capacity lithium ion batteries (LIBs), which is strongly limited by its poor cycling stability and inferior rate performance. In this work, the strategy of interlayer spacing engineering is applied on MoS2 to effectively expand the interlayer spacing from 0.62 nm to 0.98 nm, with the addition of ւ-cysteine during hydrothermal process. The cycling stability is significantly improved. The composites of interlayer expanded MoS2 and graphene oxide are further treated by N plasma to effectively dope N into both reduce graphene oxide and MoS2. The final product exhibits outstanding electrochemical performance as anode in LIBs, with high reversible capacity of 643 mA h·g−1 after 400 cycles at the rate of 500 mA g−1 and excellent rate capacity of 580 mA h·g−1 up to the rate of 2000 mA g−1. This work demonstrates that proper nanostructure engineering and electronic structure modification can make MoS2 a promising electrode material in highly fast and stable energy storage applications.