Mesoporous Carbon as Conductive Additive to Improve the High‐Rate Charge/Discharge Capacity of Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Abstract

The infiltration ability of electrolytes in to the electrode is vital to the high‐rate charge/discharge capacity of lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs). Herein, mesoporous carbon is used with abundant and continuous mesoporous channels as the conductive additive in LIBs to enhance the infiltration of electrolytes. The Li+ diffusion coefficient of the mesoporous carbon is 1.65 × 10−9 cm s−1, much higher than that of carbon nanotubes (2.5 × 10−10 cm s−1) and carbon black (1.6 × 10−10 cm s−1). It is demonstrated that LiFePO4 cathode‐based LIBs using mesoporous carbon as the conductive additive exhibit excellent high‐rate charge/discharge capacities of 121 mAh g−1 at 5 C and 54 mAh g−1 at 30 C. When the compaction density of the LiFePO4 electrode increases from 0.7 to 1.3 g cm−3, the LIBs can still deliver a capacity of 101 mAh g−1 at 3 C. This work paves a new route to facilely improve the quick charge/discharge performance of LIBs.