1T-VS₂@V₂O₃ Synergistic Nanoarchitecture-Based Lamellar Clusters as the High Conductivity Cathodes of Thermal Batteries

Thermal batteries are solid-state, thermally activated batteries with long storage times and high reliability. FeS₂ is used as a cathode material commonly, but the high internal resistance and low voltage platform limit the improvement of battery performance. Herein, the 1T-phase vanadium disulfide (VS₂) is prepared via the scalable hydrothermal method and applied to thermal battery cathode materials for the first time. 1T-VS₂ lamellar flower clusters have high electronic conductivity (1.583 S cm^-1) at room temperature, which is 75 times higher than FeS₂ (0.021 S cm^-1). Mechanism analysis shows that 1T-VS₂@V₂O₃ can be formed based on the part of 1T-VS₂ being oxidized to V₂O₃ at the discharge temperature. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of vanadium sulfide and vanadium oxide as a cathode for thermal batteries enhanced specific capacity (292.4 mA h g^-1) and mass energy density (572.5 W h kg^-1) when cutoff voltage is 1 V. Additionally, the discharge results indicate that the cells utilizing 1T-VS₂ cathodes provided a higher voltage platform of 2.11 V than 1.84 V for FeS₂. This impressive work can offer a good strategy for boosting cathode materials for a high-performance thermal battery.