Carbon Nanofiber Elastically Confined Nanoflowers: A Highly Efficient Design for Molybdenum Disulfide-Based Flexible Anodes Toward Fast Sodium Storage

Two-dimensional energy materials have been widely applied in advanced secondary batteries, among which molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) is attractive because of the potential for high capacity and good rate performance. The relatively low electronic conductivity and irreversible volume expansion of pure MoS2 still need to be improved. Here, a facile and highly efficient ex situ electrospinning technique is developed to design the carbon nanofiber elastically confined MoS2 nanoflowers flexible electrode. The flexible freestanding electrode exhibits enhanced electronic conductivities and ionic diffusion coefficients, leading to a remarkable high specific capacity (596 mA h g-1 at a current density of 50 mA g-1) and capacity retention (with 89% capacity retention after 1100 cycles at 1 A g-1). This novel idea underscores the potential importance of fabricating various flexible devices other than the sodium-ion battery.