Peering into recent advances in passivation strategies of few-layer black phosphorene toward battery anodes: A review

Black phosphorene, as the first two-dimensional form of phosphorus, has grabbed great interest due to its interesting intrinsic properties emanating from its in-plane structural anisotropy, including unique band structure, high carrier mobility, and large surface area. These features make it a viable and attractive candidate for many applications with particular interest in energy storage. However, as both experimental and computational works show, the rapid ambient degradation of phosphorene remains the main challenge facing its production and thus its use in practical devices. To address this thorny issue, researchers have made great efforts to describe the mechanism behind the chemical degradation of phosphorene at the atomic scale and have proposed several versatile passivation strategies. In this review, we provide an in-depth overview covering recent advances in theoretical and experimental research on the degradation mechanism, and the stabilization techniques from both physical and chemical aspects. In particular, the design of phosphorene-based nanostructures toward battery anodes is reviewed; ultimately, throughout the review, the remaining challenges of phosphorene are presented.