Fluorine-free prepared two-dimensional molybdenum boride (MBene) as a promising anode for lithium-ion batteries with superior electrochemical performance

MBene, an emerging two-dimensional material generated from bulk ternary metallic boride (MAB phase), has gradually attracted increasing research attention. However, the fabrication of MBene is still a great challenge, resulting in no literature reported about the application of MBene in energy storage fields (e.g. lithium-ion batteries). It is not advisable to adopt the same HF etching strategy which is generally used for the fabrication of MXene owing to the severely corrosive and toxic properties of the HF acid. Here, a fluorine-free hydrothermal-assisted alkane solution etching method is used to prepare the two-dimensional (2D) MoB MBene from MoAlB. The 2D MoB MBene as an anode material in LIBs exhibits a high electrochemical performance, the results exhibit a reversible specific capacity of 144.2 mAh g⁻¹ after 1000 cycles at the current density of 2 A g⁻¹, which is higher than many reported MXene anodes. This fluorine-free method provides a promising green strategy for exploring series of MBene materials for a wealth of application fields.