Hollow N,C-co-doped carbon-coated ZnS nanospheres derived from metal organic framework (ZIF-8) with improved lithium and sodium storage performance

Transition metal sulfides have been widely used as anode electrodes of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) due to its high theoretical capacity and low price. However, problems of huge volume expansion and poor conductivity during charging and discharging have been emerged. Herein, we design a N, C-co-doped, nano-sized, and hollow carbon-coated ZnS (ZnS-NC@C) composite using the advantages of metal organic framework (zeolitic imidazolate framework-8) structure and resorcinol-formaldehyde coating. When applied as anodes of LIBs and SIBs, it displays a high reversible capacity of 748 and 150.9 mAh g−1 after 500 cycles at the current density of 1.0 A g−1, respectively. This work could provide a promising strategy for enhancing the performance of transition metal sulfides for potential applications in LIBs and SIBs.