Liquid phase exfoliation of nonlayered non-van der Waals iron trifluoride (FeF3) into 2D-platelets for high-capacity lithium storing cathodes

•A nonlayered non-Van der Waals high-capacity cathode material for Li-ion battery, iron trifluoride (FeF3) has been exfoliated from its bulk 3D-form into 2D-platelets by liquid-phase exfoliation process.•These 2D-platelets were characterised with various microscopy techniques such as AFM, TEM, and SEM, and spectroscopy techniques such as UV–Vis and XRD.•HR-TEM and XRD confirmed that these 2D-platelets were highly crystalline, and AFM analysis showed aspect-ratio (L/t) of ∼10 for the thinnest platelets.•We found on mixing these 2D-platelets with polymer and annealing it to coat it with carbon, combined with 32 wt% SWCNT, resulted in composite electrodes with low-rate capacity of 700 mAh/g very close to the theoretical value of FeF3.