Hierarchical Microchannel Carbons Derived from Biological Phloem Tissues as High-Performance Anode for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Yunlong Liao,Haijun Zhang,Xiaomeng Zhou,Zhuang Sun,Wei Zhang,Jiahua Hu

doi:10.11648/j.jeee.20210905.12

Abstract

With the upgrading of consumption, the existing carbon-based anode materials are facing the major challenges of high preparation cost and low initial Coulomb efficiency. The fast-growing and developed sieve tube network is an inspiration to transform cattail phloem tissue (CPT) into a high-performance carbon-based anode for lithium-ion battery. In this study, porous carbon materials from CPT with abundant microchannel and nanochannel were prepared by a top-down strategy combined with an indispensable passivation process. The sidewall and end of the sieve tube are fully covered by a large number of pore structures and various supporting cells, thus ensuring the stiffness and tensile strength of phloem tissue. And benefiting from the neoteric hierarchical porous structure without Li<sup>+</sup> trapping sites, the cells with CPT anode showed high electrochemical performance. For the passivated CPT electrode, the reversible capacity increased to 321.6 mAh/g, and the initial Coulomb efficiency was 1.47 times higher than that of the passivated CPT electrode. The CPT exhibits excellent rate performance under high current, which indicates that the abundant pore structure on the surface of the sieve tube is an effective measure to improve ion diffusion. Besides, the generation mechanism of high-performance CPT is analyzed through microstructure characterization. The improvement of electrochemical performance of CPT in this work has provided a clear strategy for the application of resource-rich natural biomass to electrochemical products.

Highlights

The expansion of social demand for portable electrical equipment, low-carbon vehicles, and electric grids has boosted the new energy economy, driven by cheap, sustainable, and safe energy supply
The anode electrode was synthesized by coating the slurry of cattail phloem tissue (CPT) powder (80 wt%), Super P (10 wt%) as the conductive agent, and polyvinylidene fluoride (10 wt%) as the binder slurry dissolved in N-methyl pyrrolidinone (NMP) on copper foil and drying at 120°C
The phloem tissues in Cattail leaf have a unique structure composed of sieve tubes supporting nutrient transfer during photosynthesis

Summary

Introduction

The expansion of social demand for portable electrical equipment, low-carbon vehicles, and electric grids has boosted the new energy economy, driven by cheap, sustainable, and safe energy supply. As the most practical secondary energy storage product, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have developed rapidly and been widely applied due to their excellent energy storage efficiency, no memory effect, and less consumption [1, 2] It is a fundamental scientific and technical challenge to design and prepare better electrode materials to further meet the increasingly growing demand for high-power LIBs [3]. Graphite has been widely used in LIBs anode electrode materials due to its abundant natural resources and excellent comprehensive electrochemical properties, the theoretical capacity of 372 mAh/g, and prone to collapse after a long cycle hinder its application. The tested reversible capacity was 448 mAh/g after 100 cycles at 0.2C, but the rate performance is low due to the limited number of micropores Their vast availability and high-performance electrochemical property were unsatisfactory. What's more, such low-cost and environment-friendly biomass carbon has an excellent value for large-scale commercial applications

Preparation of CPT Materials

Materials Characterization

Electrochemical Analysis

Results and Discussion

Conclusion