Metal-Organic Coordination Strategy for Obtaining Metal-Decorated Mo-Based Complexes: Multi-dimensional Structural Evolution and High-Rate Lithium-Ion Battery Applications.

Multi-dimensional metal oxides have attracted great attention in diverse applications due to their intriguing performances. However, their structural design remains challenging, particularly that based on organic chelation chemistry. Although metal-organic complexes with different architectures have been reported, their structure formation mechanisms are not well understood because of the complex chelation processes. Herein, we introduce a new metal-organic coordination strategy to construct metal-decorated (Ni, Co, Mn) Mo-based complexes ranging from 2D nanopetals to 3D microflowers. The chelating process of the metal-organic complex can be tuned by a surfactant, giving rise to different structures, and then a further metal can be appended. Thus, different metal (oxide)-decorated MoO2 /C-N structures were designed, enabling an extremely high lithium storage capability of 1018 mA h g-1 and rate capacities of up to 10 A g-1 over 1000 cycles. Relationships between electrochemical behavior and structure have been analyzed kinetically. A high-rate lithium-ion battery has been assembled from Ni-MoO2 /C-N and an Ni-rich layered oxide as the anode and cathode, respectively. We believe that this general metal-organic coordination strategy should be applicable to other multi-functional materials with superior capabilities.