Vanadium Oxide/Graphene Nanoplatelet as a Cathode Material for Mg-Ion Battery

The aim of the present work is to introduce a high performance cathode for magnesium-ion batteries.A simple ball mill process is employed to synthesize (V 2 O 5 ) 1-x (Graphene Nanoplatelets (GNP)) x nanocomposite, (where x = 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 wt.%GNP).The synthesized samples are characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique, impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry and charge-discharge test.The maximum conductivity of the investigated samples was found to be 6 × 10 -1 S/cm for optimum composite film (25 wt% GNP) at room temperature.Room temperature rechargeable magnesium batteries are constructed from Mg as anode material, (V 2 O 5 ) 1-x (GNP) x as a cathode material and the simple non-aqueous electrolyte based MgNO 3 • 6 H 2 O. Mg/V 2 O 5 cells employing as-prepared electrolyte exhibit initial discharge capacity ∼100 mAhg -1 while Mg/(V 2 O 5 /GNP (x = 25t.%))cathode produces a lower initial capacity of ∼90 mAhg -1 .The high initial discharge capacity of V 2 O 5 can be attributed to the presence of a large (001) interlayer spacing (∼11.53Å) for facile Mg + insertion/extraction.