Controlled Synthesis of Ultrafine β-Mo(2)C Nanoparticles Encapsulated in N-Doped Porous Carbon for Boosting Lithium Storage Kinetics

[Image: see text] Rational construction of anode material architecture to afford excellent cycling stability, fast rate capacity, and large specific capacity is essential to promote further development of lithium-ion batteries in commercial applications. In this work, we propose a facile strategy to anchor ultrafine β-Mo(2)C nanoparticles in N-doped porous carbon skeleton (β-Mo(2)C@NC) using a scalable salt-template method. The well-defined and abundant hierarchical porous structure of β-Mo(2)C@NC can not only significantly enhance the electron/ion transfer but also markedly increase the specific surface area to effectively expose the electrochemically accessible active sites. Besides, the N-doped carbon matrix can turn the d-orbital electrons of the Mo to boost the electron transportation as well as distribute active sites to buffer the volume change of Mo(2)C and provide conductive pathways during discharge/charge cycles. As a result, the as-prepared β-Mo(2)C@NC displays excellent lithium storage performance in terms of 1701.6 mA h g(–1) at 0.1 A g(–1) after 100 cycles and a large capacity of 816.47 mA h g(–1) at 2.0 A g(–1) after 500 cycles. The above results distinctly demonstrate that the β-Mo(2)C@NC composite has potential application as anode materials in high-performance energy storage devices.