Aerosol-assisted preparation of N-doped hierarchical porous carbon spheres cathodes toward high-stable lithium-ion capacitors

• Published in: Journal of materials science Vol. 55; no. 27; pp. 13127 - 13140
• Main Authors: Xu, Yinghong, Jiang, Jiangmin, Li, Zhiwei, Yang, Ziqian, Zhang, Yadi, An, Yufeng, Zhu, Qi, Dou, Hui, Zhang, Xiaogang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.09.2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anodes; Capacitors; Carbon; Cathodes; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Classical Mechanics; Coupling; Crystallography and Scattering Methods; Electronic components industry; Energy Materials; Energy storage; Flux density; Lithium; Lithium ions; Materials Science; Nanospheres; Nitrogen; Phenolic resins; Polymer Sciences; Pyrolysis; Reaction kinetics; Solid Mechanics; Spray pyrolysis; Spraying; Strategy
• ISSN: 0022-2461; 1573-4803
• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-020-04955-2

Lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) are gradually emerging as one of the most indispensable hybrid energy storage devices. However, it is one main challenge to evade the mismatch of electrochemical kinetics and specific capacity between cathode and anode in LICs. Herein, we have proposed an efficient strategy to prepare the nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon spheres (NHPCS) as cathode, which is synthesized by a simple aerosol-spraying pyrolysis using the low-cost phenolic resin as carbon source without any other catalyst or hard template. The NHPCS exhibits porous nanospheres structure with an appropriate nitrogen doping level (3.65 at.%). Benefitting from the two-pronged strategy of N-doped feature and nanostructure engineering, NHPCS achieves a high specific capacity of 74 mAh g −1 at a current density of 0.1 A g −1 and remains 86.5% of initial capacity even being subjected to a high rate of 50-fold. Furthermore, a high-performance LIC has been developed by coupling NHPCS cathode and hard carbon anode, which delivers a maximum energy density of 151 Wh kg −1 and excellent cycle stability (96.3% capacity retention after 3000 cycles). Significantly, such designed porous carbon could not only be convenient for scalable production, but also be served for many other energy storage devices. Graphic abstract We have presented a larger-scale spray pyrolysis strategy to prepare nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon spheres (NHPCS). A high-stable lithium-ion capacitor has been constructed by coupling NHPCS cathode with hard carbon anode, which exhibits a maximum energy density of 151 Wh kg −1 and capacity retention of 96.3% over 3000 cycles, showing great potential for the next-generation energy storage application.