Porous carbon with the synergistic effect of cellulose fibers and MOFs as the anode for high-performance Li-ion batteries

Abstract

The commercial graphene for Li ion batteries (LIBs) has high cost and low capacity. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a novel carbon anode. The cellulose nanowires (CNWs), which has advantages of low cost, high carbon content, is thought as a good carbon precursor. However, direct carbonization of CNWs leads to low surface area and less mesopores due to its easy aggregation. Herein, the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been explored as templates to prepare porous carbon due to their 3D open pore structures. The porous carbon was developed with the coordination effect of CNWs and MOFs. The precursor of MOFs coordinates with the −OH and − COOH groups in the CNWs to provide stable structure. And the MOFs was grown in situ on CNWs to reduce aggregation and provide higher porosity. The results show that the porous carbon has high specific capacity and fast Li+/electronic conductivity. As anode for LIBs, it displays 698 mAh g−1 and the capacity retention is 85 % after 200 cycles. When using in the full-battery system, it exhibits energy density of 480 Wh kg−1, suggesting good application value. This work provides a low-cost method to synthesize porous carbon with fast Li+/electronic conductivity for high-performance LIBs.