Cold Sintering of a Covalently Bonded MoS₂/Graphite Composite as a High Capacity Li–Ion Electrode

ABSTRACT. A cold sintering approach is demonstrated to fabricate highly dense electrochemically active MoS₂/graphite (MG) composites with 88% relative density at an extremely low processing temperature of 140 °C. The process provides a pathway to sinter covalently bonded materials effectively to produce either dense or near dense pellets and/or thick films. Composites that include up to 20 wt% graphite, as well as a Li-ionic solid electrolyte (lithium aluminum germanium phosphate) could be easily integrated and densified using this method. Cold sintering also offers an elegant approach to achieve very low interfacial electrode resistances (∼42 Ω cm²) through the densification process. The specific capacity of the fabricated composite electrode was ∼ 950 mAh/g at 0.1 A/g and also displayed good capacity retention at higher current densities.