Conversion of high moisture biomass to hierarchical porous carbon via molten base carbonisation and activation for electrochemical double layer capacitor.

Biomass-derived carbon for supercapacitors faces the challenge of achieving hierarchical porous carbon with graphitic structure and specific heteroatoms through a single-stage thermal process that minimises resource input. Herein, molten base carbonisation and activation is proposed. The process utilises the inherent moisture of Moso bamboo shoots, coupled with a low amount of KOH, to form potassium organic salts before drying.

Nano-Silicon@Exfoliated Graphite/Pyrolytic Polyaniline Composite of a High-Performance Cathode for Lithium Storage.

In this paper, a Si@EG composite was prepared by liquid phase mixing and the elevated temperature solid phase method, while polyaniline was synthesized by the in situ chemical polymerization of aniline monomer to coat the surface of nano-silicon and exfoliated graphite composites (Si@EG). Pyrolytic polyaniline (p-PANI) coating prevents the agglomeration of silicon nanoparticles, forming a good conductive network that effectively alleviates the volume expansion effect of silicon electrodes. SEM, TEM, XRD, Raman, TGA and BET were used to observe the morphology and analyze the structure of the samples.

Bamboo Weaving Inspired Design of a Carbonaceous Electrode with Exceptionally High Volumetric Capacity.

A highly densified electrode material is desirable to achieve large volumetric capacity. However, pores acting as ion transport channels are critical for high utilization of active material. Achieving a balance between high volume density and pore utilization remains a challenge particularly for hollow materials.

Increasing Accessible Subsurface to Improving Rate Capability and Cycling Stability of Sodium-Ion Batteries.

Numerous studies have reported that the enhancement of rate capability of carbonaceous anode by heteroatom doping is due to the increased diffusion-controlled capacity induced by expanding interlayer spacing. However, percentage of diffusion-controlled capacity is less than 30% as scan rate is larger than 1 mV s , suggesting there is inaccuracy in recognizing principle of improving rate capability of carbonaceous anode. In this paper, it is found that the heteroatom doping has little impact on interlayer spacing of carbon in bulk phase, meaning that diffusion-controlled capacity is hard to be enhanced by doping.