MoS2 Nanosheets Hosted in Polydopamine-Derived Mesoporous Carbon Nanofibers as Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes: Enhanced MoS2 Capacity Utilization and Underlying Mechanism

In this work, solid, hollow, and porous carbon nanofibers (SNFs, HNFs, and PNFs) were used as hosts to grow MoS2 nanosheets hydrothermally. The results show that the nanosheets on the surface of SNFs and HNFs are comprised of a few grains stacked together, giving direct carbon–MoS2 contact for the first grain and indirect contact for the rest. In contrast, the nanosheets inside of PNFs are of single-grain size and are distributed evenly in the mesopores of PNFs, providing efficient MoS2–carbon contact. Furthermore, the nanosheets grown on the polydopamine-derived carbon surface of HNFs and PNFs have larger interlayer spacing than those grown on polyacrylonitrile-derived carbon surface. As a result, the MoS2 nanosheets in PNFs possess the lowest charge-transfer resistance, the most accessible active sites for lithiation/delithiation, and can effectively buffer the volume variation of MoS2, leading to its best electrochemical performance as a lithium-ion battery anode among the three. The normalized reversible capacity of the MoS2 nanosheets in PNFs is about 1210 mAh g–1 at 100 mA g–1, showing the effective utilization of the electrochemical activity of MoS2.