Carbon Nanofiber Elastically Confined Nanoflowers: A Highly Efficient Design for Molybdenum Disulfide-Based Flexible Anodes Toward Fast Sodium Storage

Two-dimensional energy materials have been widely applied in advanced secondary batteries, among which molybdenum sulfide (MoS ₂ ) is attractive because of the potential for high capacity and good rate performance. The relatively low electronic conductivity and irreversible volume expansion of pure MoS ₂ still need to be improved. Here, a facile and highly efficient ex situ electrospinning technique is developed to design the carbon nanofiber elastically confined MoS ₂ nanoflowers flexible electrode. The flexible freestanding electrode exhibits enhanced electronic conductivities and ionic diffusion coefficients, leading to a remarkable high specific capacity (596 mA h g ^-1 at a current density of 50 mA g ^-1 ) and capacity retention (with 89% capacity retention after 1100 cycles at 1 A g ^-1 ). This novel idea underscores the potential importance of fabricating various flexible devices other than the sodium-ion battery.