Molybdenum carbide nano-sheet as a high capacity anode material for monovalent alkali metal-ion batteries—Theoretical investigation

This contribution presents a theoretical investigation of monovalent metal-ion adsorption and diffusion on two-dimensional (2D) buckled nanostructure of molybdenum carbide (MoC) by using the first principle method. We find that buckled MoC nanostructure exhibits great stability, semiconducting electronic property, and high performance as electrode material. Interestingly, Crystal Orbital Hamilton population (COHP) method results show that buckled MoC is chemically stable in a wide range of temperatures, and various Li, Na, ions adsorbed configurations, which is beneficial for anode materials. Especially, single-layer MoC exhibits a superior theoretical capacity of 993.16 mA h g−1 for Li-ions and 496.58 mA h g−1 for Na/K-ions. The storage capacity of 1200 mA h g−1 is found for the adsorption of ions on multilayer bulk MoC. Moreover, migration energy barriers are predicted as 0.38 eV for Li, 0.32 eV for Na, and 0.24 eV for K; these remarkable results determine the applicability of buckled MoC as ideal anode material for metal-ion battery applications.