Room temperature processed in-situ carbon-coated vanadium carbide (VC@C) as a high capacity robust Li/Na battery anode material

3D carbide systems with their robust physical and mechanical properties have always attracted multiple application interests. In this report, we have synthesized a three-dimensional in-situ carbon coated cubic carbide, Vanadium Carbide (VC@C), by a very simple, scalable and cost-effective room temperature mechano-chemical ball-milling procedure and researched its promise as effective anode material for Li and Na ion batteries. We have demonstrated that VC@C shows an impressive initial discharge/lithiation capacity of 1165 mAh g⁻¹ with a high reversible capacity of 640 mAh g⁻¹ after 100 charge-discharge cycles at an applied current density of 0.1 A g⁻¹. We have also found that this material renders a very promising rate performance with significantly low capacity drop after exposing it to variable current densities ranging from 0.05 A g⁻¹ to 2 A g⁻¹ with an excellent stability up to 1000 cycles owing to its structural robustness, as verified by post-cycling characterizations. A Li-ion full cell study using LiCoO₂ as cathode also showed excellent promise in terms of practical application demonstrating a reversible capacity of 95 mAh g⁻¹ after 100 cycles. Even for Na insertion/de-insertion VC@C shows a clear promise in terms of capacity, cyclic stability and rate performance.