a viable alternative to more widespread lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). This is because of low cost and ready availability of sodium. [4][5][6] However, the larger ionic radius of Na + (1.02 vs Li + 0.76 Å) leads to sluggish electrochemical kinetics, larger volume change, and unsatisfactory reversibility. Consequently, graphite, the commercial anode material of LIBs, cannot be directly used in SIBs because of suppressed electrochemical kinetics. [7,8] The development of an earth-abundant and low-cost anode material remains a significant research challenge to the fabrication of high-performance SIBs.Recently, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted attention as potential anode materials for SIBs due to their unique physical and chemical properties. [9][10][11] MoS 2 , a typical TMD, has been widely investigated because of its layered structure with large interlayerspacing (6.15 Å) that is beneficial to insertion/extraction of Na + . [12][13][14] However, conductivity and Na + diffusion is restricted by its semi-conducting 2H-phase and relatively large van der Waals interaction between adjacent layers. This results in poor electrochemical performance. 1T-MoS 2 with metallic conductivity and interlayer-expanded MoS 2 with reduced van der Waals interaction, have therefore been extensively studied. [15][16][17][18] However the fabrication of a stable 1T-MoS 2 together with extremely weak interlayer coupling via a facile and low-cost method has not been reported.Inspiringly, ReS 2 (rhenium disulfide) is a new TMD known to exhibit both distorted 1T (1T′) phase and extremely weak interlayer van der Waals interaction. [19][20][21][22][23] This makes it highly suitable for application to LIBs and SIBs. [24][25][26] The theoretical capacity of ReS 2 is 428 mAh g −1 . This value is based on the conversion reaction between one atom of ReS 2 and four of Li + or Na + . Despite these intrinsic structural advantages, a drawback is that, ReS 2 nanosheets suffer from irreversible structural change on deep charge-discharge processing. Additionally, it is reported that the direction of the largest volume expansion is along the out-of-plane. [27,28] This significantly impedes electrochemical performance of anisotropic ReS 2 anode materials in SIBs. To the best of our knowledge, only limited research has been undertaken to address this, including preparation of
ReS 2 (rhenium disulfide) is a new transition-metal dichalcogenide that exhibits 1T′ phase and extremely weak interlayer van der Waals interactions. This makes it promising as an anode material for sodium-ion batteries. However, achieving both a high-rate capability and a long-life has remained a major research challenge. Here, a new composite is reported, in which both are realized for the first time. 1T′-ReS 2 is confined through strong interfacial interaction in a 2D-honeycombed carbon nanosheets that comprise an rGO inter-layer and a N-doped carbon coating-layer (rGO@ReS 2 @N-C). The strong interfacial interaction between carbon and ReS 2 increases overallconduc...