Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become one of the most widely used powers for portable electronic devices such as laptops, mobile phones, medical microelectronic devices and electrical vehicles with many outstanding features. Recently, the rareness and uneven distribution of lithium become a serious challenge for large scale application, which also resulting the high cost of LIBs. As the alternative for LIBs, sodium-ion battery (SIBs) has attracted increasing attention for the clean energy storage device due to the low cost as well as the high abundance than lithium [1]. However, the larger radius of Na ion will lead to the large volume exchange and sluggish kinetics, resulting the unstable of the electrode, especially for anode materials. To date, many efforts are attempted to manufacture different anode materials including novel carbon, metal oxide and metal sulfide for SIBs.

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs), as a new class of porous crystalline materials, have been gradually studied as the precursors and templates for the design of porous carbon, metal oxide, metal sulfide and hierarchical nanostructure in the application of clean energy, such as batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors [2]. In this case, we have developed different types of porous carbon and heteroatom (N, S) doped porous carbon derived from MOFs with high surface area and porosity. The N, S co-doped porous carbon delivers a highest capacity over 370 mAh g^-1 at the current density of 50 mAg^-1 and excellent rate capability with 196.5 mAh g^-1 at 2000 mAg^-1 in the application of SIBs. When test in LIBs, it also shows the high reversible capacity over 840 mAh g^-1 at 100 mAg^-1 after 100 cycles.

  Then, the porous SnO₂ and Sn@carbon composites are achieved by design of new kinds of Sn-based MOFs. In Sn@C composites, Sn nanoparticles are surrounded by carbon matrix inheriting from MOFs with the improved performances than the porous SnO₂ in both SIBs and LIBs. Furthermore, porous metal sulfide and 3D nanostructures based on MOFs also can be synthesized with the controllable morphologies and satisfactory performances.

     In conclusion, MOFs-derived nanomaterials show great potential in the application of LIBs and SIBs due to their unique properties, which lead to superior performance based on controllable shape, particle size, crystal structure, and purity based on the design of MOFs. Thus, MOFs and MOFs-based materials is a promising approach for the building of potential anode materials for high performances LIBs and SIBs.

Reference

[1] Karthikeyan Kaliyappan, Jian Liu, Andrew Lushington, Ruying Li, Xueliang Sun, Highly Stable Na_2/3(Mn_0.54Ni_0.13Co_0.13)O₂ Cathode Modified by Atomic Layer Deposition for Sodium-Ion Batteries, ChemSusChem, 2015, 8, 2537 – 2543

[2] Yang Zhao, Zhongxin Song, Xia Li, Qian, Sun, Niancai Cheng, Stephen Lawes, Xueliang Sun, Metal Organic Frameworks for Energy Storage and Conversion, Energy Storage Materials, 2016, 2, 35–62