The hydrothermal synthesis, crystal structure and electrochemical properties of MnSbO.

Phase pure polycrystalline MnSbO was synthesised under hydrothermal conditions. Impurities formed outside a narrow range of pH and metal stoichiometric ratios. The structure and its temperature dependence was studied based on multi-temperature conventional single crystal X-ray diffraction (SC-XRD) and high resolution synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). At low temperature (100-300 K) the lattice parameters expanded linearly with thermal expansion coefficients of α = 8(1) × 10 K and α = 7.2(2) × 10 K. At high temperature an irreversible annealing effect was observed. Modelling the atomic displacement parameters based on the single crystal X-ray diffraction data gives a Debye temperature of 267(3) K for MnSbO. When heated in an oxygen-rich atmosphere MnSbO oxidises above 800 K and it decomposes at 975 K under inert conditions. Electrochemical measurements displayed similar behaviour to the isostructural CoSbO, with reversible alloying-dealloying of LiSb after the first cycle with a reversible capacity of 337 mAh g at the 2 cycle, which degraded to c. 100 mAh g after 30 cycles.