Polyacrylonitrile Hard Carbon as Anode of High Rate Capability for Lithium Ion Batteries

Abstract

In order to develop new type of carbon anode material with high performance, a novel organic carbon material polyacrylonitrile (PAN) hard carbon was prepared by calcination of polypropylene cyanide at 1,050 • C. The obtained PAN hard carbon is used as the negative electrode material of lithium ion battery, showing an initial capacity of 343.5 mAh g −1 which is equal to that of graphite electrode (348.6 mAh g −1 ), and a higher initial coulomb efficiency of 87.9% than that of graphite electrode (84.4%). Moreover, the PAN hard carbon electrode shows superior cycle stability and rate performance at different current rates. The charge capacities are 320.1, 219.0, 212.9, and 123.5 mAh g −1 at current rates of 0.2, 1, 2, and 3 C, with coulombic efficiencies of 98.1, 100.6, 88.1, and 110.0%, respectively, which are higher than those of graphite electrode (83.8, 97.6, 98.8, and 94.1%). In addition, the charging capacity of PAN hard carbon electrode can still remain at 284.3 mAh g −1 (0.2 C after 200 cycles), 226.4 mAh g −1 (1 C after 300 cycles), 149.5 mAh g −1 (2 C after 400 cycles), and 120.0 mAh g −1 (3 C after 100 cycles), with capacity retention rates of 78.2, 111.9, 79.7, and 88.6%, respectively. The capacity and capacity retention rate after cycling are significantly higher than those of graphite electrode, indicating that the PAN hard carbon electrode shows superior rate performance, which would provide a new idea for the development of novel negative electrode material with high performance.

Polydopamine-Derived Carbon: What a Critical Role for Lithium Storage?

“…The 0.9-V peaks can correspond to the decomposition of the electrolyte followed by the formation of a solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer (Cui et al, 2019;Xu et al, 2019;Boyjoo et al, 2020). The 0.01-V cathodic peak is ascribed to the intercalation and deintercalation of Li ions into graphene-like planes Ould Ely et al, 2019;Rao et al, 2020). The galvanostatic discharge/charge curves of the BMCNs at 0.1 A g −1 are presented in Figure 3B.…”

“…Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are the most competitive candidates of energy storage systems (ESS) and have a wide application in portable electronic devices and electric vehicles (Tarascon and Armand, 2001;Jiang et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2015;Zhu et al, 2019). However, graphitic carbon, as currently the standard commercial anode material for LIBs, possesses low theoretical capacity (372 mA h g −1 ) and undesirable rate performance, which limit its application in a high-energy system (Dai et al, 2019;Zheng et al, 2019;Rao et al, 2020). Nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials have been widely explored as alternatives to commercial graphitic materials, showing high reversible capacity, high-rate performance, and high cyclic capability.…”

Spruce Hard Carbon Anodes for Lithium‐Ion Batteries

“…Again, a broad signal between 1.1 V and 0.5 V was observed, due to the SEI formation, indicating successful pre-lithiation. To make room for lithium originating from the NMC cathode, the cell was subsequently charged to 1 V. A different battery chemistry, but the same pre-lithiation approach using the lithium reference of a three-electrode cell, was applied by Liu et al [41] For hard carbon, a similar pretreatment was proposed by Rao et al [61] However, the group used coin cells for pretreatment followed by transfer of the prelithiated anode to the full-cell, while the approach presented here allowed both steps in one assembly. The specific capacity of the de-lithiation step is relatively low (compared to half-cell measurements), which can be due to enhanced kinetic limitations, since the distance between reference electrode and spruce hard carbon anode was comparatively long and rectangularly aligned.…”

Facile fabrication of polyacrylonitrile‐derived porous carbon beads via electron beam irradiation as anode materials for Li‐ion batteries

“…Therefore, PAN-derived hard carbons are considered as promising anode materials for LiBs. 6,7 PCMs are fabricated by the pyrolysis of porous PAN materials with various forms (eg, beads, monoliths, fibers, and films). Those porous PAN materials are prepared based on various phase separation methods.…”

“…Compared to the soft carbons, the disordered structures and defects in hard carbons can provide more active sites for Li ion storage. Therefore, PAN‐derived hard carbons are considered as promising anode materials for LiBs 6,7 …”