Improved sodium storage performances of plasma treated self-supported carbon fibers

Abstract

Sodium-ion batteries have been widely considered as promising energy storage systems due to the abundance and low cost of sodium. However, to find a kind of anode material with appropriate sodium storage and high structural stability still remains challenging. In this work, self-supported porous carbon fibers were prepared by electrospinning technique and plasma treatments. It's found that the porous carbon fibers become more loose after the plasma treatments, and the surface compositions are changed. Results show that the material after plasma treatments could deliver capacities higher than 200 mAh/g when the current density is 1000 mA/g. EIS results show that the charge transfer resistances of the treated material keep more stable after electrochemical cycles. And these improvements may be results of the plasma treatments. Detailed mechanisms are studied in this research.