Novel Mesoporous Flowerlike Iron Sulfide Hierarchitectures: Facile Synthesis and Fast Lithium Storage Capability

Abstract

The 3D flowerlike iron sulfide (F-FeS) is successfully synthesized via a facile one-step sulfurization process, and the electrochemical properties as anode materials for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are investigated. Compared with bulk iron sulfide, we find that the unique structural features, overall flowerlike structure, composed of several dozen nanopetals and numerous small size iron sulfide particles embedded within the fine nanopetals, and hierarchical pore structure features provide signification improvements in lithium storage performance, with a high-rate discharge capacity of 779.0 mAh g−1 at a rate of 5 A g−1, due to effectively alleviating the volume expansion during the lithiation/delithiation process, and shorting the diffusion length of both lithium ion and electron. Especially, an excellent cycling stability are achieved, a high discharge capacity of 890 mAh g−1 retained at a rate of 1.0 A g−1, suggesting its promising applications in lithium ion batteries (LIBs).