Pine wood-derived hollow carbon fibers@NiO@rGO hybrids as sustainable anodes for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

In general, biomass-derived carbon or nickel oxide (NiO) served individually as anode materials for lithium ion batteries suffers from insuperable barriers due to severe defects, i.e. low specific capacity for carbon anodes, low electronic conductivity and large volume expansions for NiO anodes during cycling, etc. Herein, we proposed a strategy that combines wood-derived hollow carbon fibers with around 35 wt% nano NiO wrapped by the reduced graphene oxide (rGO). This unique structure fully integrates the merits of porous and conductive carbon fiber skeletons, high gravimetric capacity of NiO, and highly flexible and conductive rGO, exhibiting superior electrochemical performance than the CF and CF@NiO composite. CF@NiO@rGO exhibits an initial discharge capacity of 1062.3 mAh g−1, and charge capacity of 684.1 mAh g−1, resulting in the initial coulombic efficiency of 64.4%. Remarkably, as the current density increases to 2 A g−1, the CF@NiO@rGO delivers a reversible capacity of 333 mA h g−1, and 148.9 mA h g−1 is still retained at 1 A g−1 after 1000 cycles.