Carbon-Anchored MnO Nanosheets as an Anode for High-Rate and Long-Life Lithium-Ion Batteries

Developing electrode materials with high rate as well as prolonged cycle is particularly necessary for the ever-growing market penetration of electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicle. Herein, we demonstrate a facile and efficient strategy to synthesize MnO/C hybrid via freeze-drying followed by thermal treatment in N₂ atmosphere. The MnO nanosheets are firmly anchored onto carbon layers to form MnO/C hybrid. When used as an anode in lithium-ion batteries, the typical MnO/C hybrid displays a high initial Coulombic efficiency of 83.1% and delivers a high capacity of 1449.8 mAh g^-1 after 100 cycles at 0.3 A g^-1. Furthermore, the typical MnO/C hybrid can still maintain significantly high capacity of 1467.0 mAh g^-1 after 2000 cycles at 5 A g^-1, which may be the best performance reported so far for MnO-based materials. The superior electrochemical performance of the MnO/C hybrid may be attributed to its unique microstructure features such as effective conductive pathway of carbon sheets, firm connection between MnO and carbon sheets, and small-sized MnO.