Improving the electrochemical kinetics
and the intrinsic poor conductivity
of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) electrodes is meaningful
for developing next-generation energy storage systems. As one of the
most promising TMD anode materials, ReS2 shows attractive
performance in potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). To overcome the poor
kinetic ion diffusion and limited cycling stability of the ReS2-based electrode, herein, the interlayer distance expanding
strategy was employed, and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was introduced
into ReS2. Few-layered ReS2 nanosheets were
grown on the surface of the rGO with expanded interlayer distance.
The prepared ReS2 nanosheets show an expanded distance
(∼0.77 nm). The synthesized EI-ReS2@rGO composites
were used in PIBs as anode materials. The K-ion storage mechanism
of the ReS2-based anode was investigated by in situ X-ray
diffraction (XRD) technology, which shows the intercalation and conversion
types. The EI-ReS2@rGO nanocomposites show high specific
capacities of 432.5, 316.5, and 241 mAh g–1 under
0.05, 0.2, and 1.0 A g–1 current densities and exhibit
excellent reversibility at 1.0 A g–1. Overall, this
strategy, which finely tunes the local chemistry and orbital hybridization
for high-performance PIBs, will open up a new field for other materials.