  The capacity and stability of constituent electrodes determine the
performance of Li-ion batteries. In this study, density functional theory is
employed to explore the potential application of recently synthesized two
dimensional phosphorene as electrode materials. Our results show that Li atoms
can bind strongly with phosphorene monolayer and double layer with significant
electron transfer. Besides, the structure of phosphorene is not much influenced
by lithiation and the volume change is only 0.2\%. A semiconducting to metallic
transition is observed after lithiation. The diffusion barrier is calculated to
0.76 and 0.72 eV on monolayer and double layer phosphorene. The theoretical
specific capacity of phosphorene monolayer is 432.79 mAh/g, which is larger
than other commercial anodes materials. Our findings show that the high
capacity, low open circuit voltage, small volume change and electrical
conductivity of phosphorene make it a good candidate as electrode material.
