Well-Dispersed\nManganese-Oxo Clusters as Anode Materials\nfor High-Performance Lithium Ion Batteries

Metal-oxo clusters show great promise in lithium ion\nbattery applications\nas anode materials by virtue of their native nature of well-defined\nnanostructures and multielectron redox activities. However, their\nintrinsic unsatisfactory electrical conductivity and tendency to aggregation\nmake them difficult to fully utilize. Herein, a well-dispersed Mn<sub>12</sub>O<sub>12</sub>(CH<sub>3</sub>COO)<sub>16</sub>(H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>4</sub> (denoted as Mn<sub>12</sub>) cluster is constructed\nby rationally adopting carbon dots (CDs) with nanosize and high conductivity\nas stabilizers. Thanks to the fully exposed redox sites of Mn<sub>12</sub> clusters and additional interfacial energy storage mechanism,\nthe optimized Mn<sub>12</sub>/CDs-1:20 anode delivers a high specific\ncapacity of 1643 mAh g<sup>–1</sup> at 0.2 A g<sup>–1</sup> (0.25 C) and exhibits outstanding rate and cycling capabilities.\nThis paper provides a green and efficient paradigm to synthesize well-dispersed\nmanganese-oxo clusters for the first time and builds a new platform\nfor cluster-based energy storage.