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Construction of flexible lignin/polyacrylonitrile-based carbon nanofibers for dual-carbon sodium-ion capacitors

  • Energy materials
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Abstract

The construction of flexible lignin-based carbon materials is usually impeded by the formation of abounding rigid benzene rings during carbonization. To improve the flexibility, the chemical structure of lignin/polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based electrospun nanofibers was regulated by tuning cooling process of pre-oxidation. More non-crosslinked branches of lignin with single bonds remained after pre-oxidation, which is beneficial for the formation of flexible lignin/PAN-based carbon nanofibers (CNFs). Assembled as half cells versus sodium metal, the flexible lignin/PAN-based CNFs exhibit a characteristic of hard carbon with a high reversible capacity (207 mA h g−1 at 0.2 A g−1) and a superior cycling life (125% capacity retention after 10,000 cycles at 1.0 A g−1), and the activated lignin/PAN-based CNFs display a large specific surface area of 1390 m2 g−1 and good rate performance (43 mA h g−1 at 2.0 A g−1), which can be used directly as the anode and cathode of sodium-ion capacitors (SICs), respectively. The assembled SIC shows excellent cycling performance (100% capacity retention after 6,000 cycles at 1.0 A g−1) and a good energy density with a good power density (68 W h kg−1 @ 172 W kg−1, 40 W h kg−1 @ 2000 W kg−1). The flexible SIC can supply energy under diverse bending conditions and retain 80% of specific capacity after 1,500 cycles under a 180° bending state. This work provides a new sight to prepare flexible lignin-based carbon materials, which widens the road for sustainable application of lignin.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52172047) and Tsinghua-Foshan Innovation Special Fund (TFISF), China (No. 2020THFS0112).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ning Zhao, Feiyu Kang & Zheng-Hong Huang

  2. Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ning Zhao, Chong Wang, Bohan Li, Wanci Shen, Feiyu Kang & Zheng-Hong Huang

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  1. Ning Zhao
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Contributions

NZ contributed to methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and visualization; Chong Wang contributed to formal analysis; BL contributed to validation; WS contributed to conceptualization and supervision; FK contributed to conceptualization; ZHH contributed to conceptualization, resources, writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zheng-Hong Huang.

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Zhao, N., Wang, C., Li, B. et al. Construction of flexible lignin/polyacrylonitrile-based carbon nanofibers for dual-carbon sodium-ion capacitors. J Mater Sci 57, 11809–11823 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-022-07371-w

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