Abstract
Two-dimensional (2D) materials, including transition-metal chalcogenides, MXenes, and carbonaceous materials, have been regarded as promising alternatives to commercial graphite for use as advanced lithium/sodium-ion battery (LIB/SIB) anodes owing to the enriched active sites and expanded interlayer spacing for higher energy/power densities. The carbonaceous 2D materials, either graphitic or nongraphitic structures, arise from varieties of natural or artificial sources with potential scalable synthesis, high conductivity, and low cost and have shown great advantages for sustainable energy conversion and storage applications. Considering the importance of 2D carbonaceous materials beyond graphene, a timely and systematic overview of the very recent progress of layer-structured carbonaceous materials is vital for exploring high-performance anode materials for advanced LIB/SIBs. The recent advances in Li+/Na+ ion storage in various novel morphological variants of 2D carbonaceous materials prepared by a variety of techniques are discussed along with important models presented in the literature to explain the excess lithium/sodium storage. This review will also discuss the opportunities, challenges, and perspectives of the 2D carbonaceous nanomaterials beyond graphene in the field of energy storage.
Highlights
Owing to the limited reserve of Li resources, sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), which share an operation mechanism similar to that of Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), have recently regained considerable interest as a most promising alternative to LIBs. These SIBs are especially important for large-scale grid energy storage needs owing to the wide availability and low cost of sodium as one of the most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust.[11,14,15]
These characteristics make carbon materials among the most promising electrode materials in energy storage and conversion, and they have already been playing a significant role in the development of alternative clean and sustainable energy technologies.[10,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49]
It has been considered that 2D carbonaceous materials behave well with fast charging and shortened diffusion distances when applied as anode materials for advanced LIBs and SIBs owing to the high surface area and electrical conductivity of the layered structures.[50]
Summary
With increasing energy crisis and environmental concerns, the exploration of renewable and clean energy materials and their associated devices is urgently needed.[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have already exhibited great commercial success in portable devices, and the recent application of LIBs as power sources for electric vehicles (EVs) or hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) has attracted considerable attention in many countries.[12,13] owing to the limited reserve of Li resources, sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), which share an operation mechanism similar to that of LIBs, have recently regained considerable interest as a most promising alternative to LIBs. These characteristics make carbon materials among the most promising electrode materials in energy storage and conversion, and they have already been playing a significant role in the development of alternative clean and sustainable energy technologies.[10,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49] It has been considered that 2D carbonaceous materials behave well with fast charging and shortened diffusion distances when applied as anode materials for advanced LIBs and SIBs owing to the high surface area and electrical conductivity of the layered structures.[50] These 2D carbonaceous materials beyond graphene feature structural disorder/defects and expanded carbon interlayer spacing, which provide substantial active sites, while the 2D morphology facilitates rapid electrical conductivity, and they have been widely studied in energy-related and environmental applications [see Tables I and II (compact version); Tables S1 and S2 (full version), supplementary material265].45,52,170–172 Such low-cost 2D carbons exhibit great potential for substituting graphene materials and can be further used as conducting networks with controllable dimensions to support active components.[99] For SIBs in particular, several positive electrode materials are available with either layered or polyanionic structural frameworks, the choice of material on the negative electrode side is still severely restricted with only nongraphitic (hard) carbon currently exhibiting realistic application prospects.[173]. We will present our insights into the opportunities and challenges of these layer-structured carbonaceous materials in different energy storage systems for the near future
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
