Flower-like manganese and phosphorus co-doped MoS₂ with high 1T phase content as a supercapacitor electrode material

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) usually exhibits a severe stacking and agglomeration phenomenon, and an inferior rate capability and cyclability as a supercapacitor electrode material. Heteroatom doping and phase engineering are the available methods to ameliorate the electrochemical performances of MoS2. Herein, flower-like manganese and phosphorus co-doped MoS2 (MnP-MoS2) is successfully fabricated via using manganese chloride and sodium hypophosphite as dopants. The obtained MnP-MoS2 possesses a large interlayer spacing of 0.88 nm and a high 1T phase content of 82.9%. Thanks to the synergistic doping effect of Mn and P, MnP-MoS2 delivers a maximum capacity of 432.3 F g(-1) at 1 A g(-1) and maintains 55.7% of the initial capacity at 20 A g(-1). Moreover, the asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) device fabricated using MnP-MoS2 as the positive electrode and activated carbon (AC) as the negative electrode displays an energy density of 16.7 W h kg(-1) at 403.9 W kg(-1), and keeps 84.4% of the original capacity after 2000 cycles. This work proposes a versatile strategy to develop other two-dimensional transition metal chalcogenides as high-performance electrode materials for supercapacitors.