Carbon Nanosheet Frameworks Derived from Peat Moss as High Performance Sodium Ion Battery Anodes

• DOI: 10.1021/nn404640c
• Publication Date: 2013-11-05T16:21:28Z
• Authors: Jia Ding; Huanlei Wang; Zhi Li; Alireza Kohandehghan; Kai Cui; Zhanwei Xu; Beniamin Zahiri; Xuehai Tan; Elmira Memarzadeh...; Brian C. Olsen; David Mitlin
• Keywords: Nanosheet; Sodium-ion battery; Carbon fibers

We demonstrate that peat moss, a wild plant covers 3% of the earth's surface, serves as an ideal precursor to create sodium ion battery (NIB) anodes with some most attractive electrochemical properties ever reported for carbonaceous materials. By inheriting unique cellular structure moss leaves, resultant materials are composed three-dimensional macroporous interconnected networks carbon nanosheets (as thin 60 nm). The tissue is highly cross-linked, being rich in lignin and hemicellulose, suppressing nucleation equilibrium graphite even at 1100 °C. Rather, carbons form ordered pseudographitic arrays substantially larger intergraphene spacing (0.388 nm) than (c/2 = 0.3354 XRD analysis demonstrates this allows significant Na intercalation occur below 0.2 V vs Na/Na(+). also incorporating mild (300 °C) air activation step, we introduce hierarchical micro- mesoporosity tremendously improves high rate performance through facile electrolyte access further reduced diffusion distances. optimized structures (carbonization °C + activation) result stable cycling capacity 298 mAh g(-1) (after 10 cycles, 50 mA g(-1)), ∼150 charge accumulating between 0.1 0.001 negligible voltage hysteresis region, nearly 100% Coulombic efficiency, superb retention (255 210th cycle, 203 500 g(-1)).