Multidimensional VO2 nanotubes/Ti3C2 MXene composite for efficient electrochemical lithium/sodium-ion storage

The nature of vanadium oxides with multiple valence states and a rich species of oxides facilitates the construction of high performance batteries. Among these, vanadium dioxide (VO 2 ), despite offering several advantages, is seldom reported in anode materials due to its inferior cycling stability and rate performance caused by large volume changes. Herein, we employed a rational structural strategy to assemble VO 2 -NTs/Ti 3 C 2 anode with a multidimensional cross-linked structure using VO 2 nanotubes (VO 2 -NTs) and Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene . Specifically, the abundant multidimensional channels of VO 2 -NTs/Ti 3 C 2 reduce the diffusion impedance of the ions, and the enhanced intrinsic conductivity and highly robust structure solve the problems originally present in VO 2 , which are verified in characterization and density functional theory calculations. Consequently, the composite electrode shows ultra-high reversible capacity (1425 mAh g −1  at 1 A g −1 ), excellent cycling performance (516 mAh g −1  at 5 A g −1 after 2000 cycles) and superior rate performance (703 mAh g −1  at 10 A g −1 ), and also exhibits decent sodium storage performance, representing the best comprehensive battery performance of VO 2 -based anodes to date.