Willow-Leaf-Like ZnSe@N-Doped Carbon Nanoarchitecture as a Stable and High-Performance Anode Material for Sodium-Ion and Potassium-Ion Batteries

ZnSe is regarded as a promising anode material for energy storage due to its high theoretical capacity and environment friendliness. Nevertheless, it is still a significant challenge to obtain superior electrode materials with stable performance owing to the serious volume change and aggregation upon cycling. Herein, a willow-leaf-like nitrogen-doped carbon-coated ZnSe (ZnSe@NC) composite synthesized through facile solvothermal and subsequent selenization process is beneficial to expose more active sites and facilitate the fast electron/ion transmission. These merits significantly enhance the electrochemical performances of ZnSe@NC for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) and potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). The obtained ZnSe@NC exhibits outstanding rate performance (440.3 mAh g −1 at 0.1 A g −1 and 144.4 mAh g −1 at 10 A g −1 ) and ultralong cycle stability (242.2 mAh g −1 at 8.0 A g −1 even after 3200 cycles) for SIBs. It is noted that 106.5 mAh g −1 can be retained after 550 cycles and 71.4 mAh g −1 is still remained after 1500 cycles at 200 mA g −1 when applied as anode for PIBs, indicating good cycle stability of the electrode. The possible electrochemical mechanism and the ionic diffusion kinetics of the ZnSe@NC are investigated using ex situ X-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and a series of electrochemical analyses.