Exploration and Size Engineering from Natural Chalcopyrite to High-Performance Electrode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Compared to chemosynthetic CuFeS2, natural chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) can be regarded as a promising anode material for exploring ultrafast and stable Li-ion batteries benefiting from it being firsthand, eco-friendly, and resource-rich. Considering the nonuniform size distribution in it and the fact that homogeneous grain distributions can effectively restrain the aggregation of active materials, the engineering of size is deemed an effective strategy to achieve excellent Li-storage performances. Herein, varisized natural CuFeS2 are obtained by facial mineral processing technology and outstanding Li-storage performances are exhibited. Along with the decreasing of size, the contribution of pseudocapacitive as well as the ion transfer rates are significantly boosted. As expected, even at 1 A g–1, a remarkable capacity of 1009.7 mA h g–1 is displayed by the sample with the smallest size and most uniform distributions even after 500 cycles. Furthermore, supported by the detailed analysis of in situ X-ray diffracti...