Abstract
Nanosize N-doped graphene is prepared from N-containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by chemical exfoliation. The CNTs adopted for graphene are characterized by a discontinuous wall that consists of nanosize graphite layers, exhibiting a bamboo-like appearance. Take advantage of this characterization, the most time-consuming process of chemical oxidation that involves intercalation in graphene from CNT has been markedly reduced. The reduction in processing time is attributed to the diffusion distance of chemical oxidation intercalation into nanosize graphite composed of a bamboo-like carbon nanotube (BCNT) wall being far less than that of conventional chemical exfoliation into microsize graphite. The as-prepared nanosize N-doped graphene from BCNTs has shown an excellent electrochemical performance for Li-ion battery and Na-ion battery anode materials.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
L.-L. Tian, X.-Y. Wei, Q.-C. Zhuang, C.-H. Jiang, C. Wu, G.-Y. Ma et al., Bottom-up synthesis of nitrogen-doped graphene sheets for ultrafast lithium storage. Nanoscale (2014)
T. Hu, X. Sun, H. Sun, G. Xin, D. Shao, C. Liu et al., Rapid synthesis of nitrogen-doped graphene for a lithium ion battery anode with excellent rate performance and super-long cyclic stability. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 16(3), 1060–1066 (2014)
A.L.M. Reddy, A. Srivastava, S.R. Gowda, H. Gullapalli, M. Dubey, P.M. Ajayan, Synthesis of nitrogen-doped graphene films for lithium battery application. ACS Nano 4(11), 6337–6342 (2010)
H.M. Jeong, J.W. Lee, W.H. Shin, Y.J. Choi, H.J. Shin, J.K. Kang et al., Nitrogen-doped graphene for high-performance ultracapacitors and the importance of nitrogen-doped sites at basal planes. Nano Lett. 11(6), 2472–2477 (2011)
Y. Lu, Y. Huang, M. Zhang, Y. Chen, Nitrogen-doped graphene materials for supercapacitor applications. J. Nanosci. Nanotechnol. 14(2), 1134–1144 (2014)
D. Geng, Y. Chen, Y. Chen, Y. Li, R. Li, X. Sun et al., High oxygen-reduction activity and durability of nitrogen-doped graphene. Energy Environ. Sci. 4(3), 760–764 (2011)
L. Qu, Y. Liu, J.-B. Baek, L. Dai, Nitrogen-doped graphene as efficient metal-free electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction in fuel cells. ACS Nano 4(3), 1321–1326 (2010)
Y. Shao, S. Zhang, M.H. Engelhard, G. Li, G. Shao, Y. Wang et al., Nitrogen-doped graphene and its electrochemical applications. J. Mater. Chem. 20(35), 7491–7496 (2010)
L. Zhang, Z. Xia, Mechanisms of oxygen reduction reaction on nitrogen-doped graphene for fuel cells. J. Phys. Chem. C 115(22), 11170–11176 (2011)
K.S. Novoselov, A.K. Geim, S.V. Morozov, D. Jiang, Y. Zhang, S.V. Dubonos et al., Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films. Science 306(5696), 666–669 (2004)
W.S. Hummers Jr, R.E. Offeman, Preparation of graphitic oxide. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 80(6), 1339 (1958)
W. Du, X. Jiang, L. Zhu, From graphite to graphene: direct liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite to produce single- and few-layered pristine graphene. J. Mater. Chem. A 1(36), 10592–10606 (2013)
W.W. Liu, J.N. Wang, Direct exfoliation of graphene in organic solvents with addition of NaOH. Chem. Commun. 47(24), 6888–6890 (2011)
Y. Hernandez, V. Nicolosi, M. Lotya, F.M. Blighe, Z. Sun, S. De et al., High-yield production of graphene by liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite. Nat. Nanotechnol. 3(9), 563–568 (2008)
W. Yang, G. Chen, Z. Shi, C.-C. Liu, L. Zhang, G. Xie et al., Epitaxial growth of single-domain graphene on hexagonal boron nitride. Nat. Mater. 12(9), 792–797 (2013)
P.W. Sutter, J.-I. Flege, E.A. Sutter, Epitaxial graphene on ruthenium. Nat. Mater. 7(5), 406–411 (2008)
T. Ohta, A. Bostwick, T. Seyller, K. Horn, E. Rotenberg, Controlling the electronic structure of bilayer graphene. Science 313(5789), 951–954 (2006)
C. Berger, Z. Song, X. Li, X. Wu, N. Brown, C. Naud et al., Electronic confinement and coherence in patterned epitaxial graphene. Science 312(5777), 1191–1196 (2006)
D.V. Kosynkin, A.L. Higginbotham, A. Sinitskii, J.R. Lomeda, A. Dimiev, B.K. Price et al., Longitudinal unzipping of carbon nanotubes to form graphene nanoribbons. Nature 458(7240), 872–876 (2009)
L. Jiao, L. Zhang, X. Wang, G. Diankov, H. Dai, Narrow graphene nanoribbons from carbon nanotubes. Nature 458(7240), 877–880 (2009)
K.S. Kim, Y. Zhao, H. Jang, S.Y. Lee, J.M. Kim, K.S. Kim et al., Large-scale pattern growth of graphene films for stretchable transparent electrodes. Nature 457(7230), 706–710 (2009)
X. Li, W. Cai, J. An, S. Kim, J. Nah, D. Yang et al., Large-area synthesis of high-quality and uniform graphene films on copper foils. Science 324(5932), 1312–1314 (2009)
Q. Yu, L.A. Jauregui, W. Wu, R. Colby, J. Tian, Z. Su et al., Control and characterization of individual grains and grain boundaries in graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition. Nat. Mater. 10(6), 443–449 (2011)
V. Nicolosi, M. Chhowalla, M.G. Kanatzidis, M.S. Strano, J.N. Coleman, Liquid exfoliation of layered materials. Science 340(6139), 1226419 (2013)
X. Wang, X. Li, L. Zhang, Y. Yoon, P.K. Weber, H. Wang et al., N-doping of graphene through electrothermal reactions with ammonia. Science 324(5928), 768–771 (2009)
D. Long, W. Li, L. Ling, J. Miyawaki, I. Mochida, S.-H. Yoon, Preparation of nitrogen-doped graphene sheets by a combined chemical and hydrothermal reduction of graphene oxide. Langmuir 26(20), 16096–16102 (2010)
Z.-H. Sheng, L. Shao, J.-J. Chen, W.-J. Bao, F.-B. Wang, X.-H. Xia, Catalyst-free synthesis of nitrogen-doped graphene via thermal annealing graphite oxide with melamine and its excellent electrocatalysis. ACS Nano 5(6), 4350–4358 (2011)
N.R. Jafri, N. Rajalakshmi, S. Ramaprabhu, Nitrogen doped graphene nanoplatelets as catalyst support for oxygen reduction reaction in proton exchange membrane fuel cell. J. Mater. Chem. 20(34), 7114–7117 (2010)
Y. Wang, Y. Shao, D.W. Matson, J. Li, Y. Lin, Nitrogen-doped graphene and its application in electrochemical biosensing. ACS Nano 4(4), 1790–1798 (2010)
Y.-C. Lin, C.-Y. Lin, P.-W. Chiu, Controllable graphene N-doping with ammonia plasma. Appl. Phys. Lett. 96(13), 133110–133113 (2010)
B. Guo, Q. Liu, E. Chen, H. Zhu, L. Fang, J.R. Gong, Controllable N-doping of graphene. Nano Lett. 10(12), 4975–4980 (2010)
D. Wei, Y. Liu, Y. Wang, H. Zhang, L. Huang, G. Yu, Synthesis of N-doped graphene by chemical vapor deposition and its electrical properties. Nano Lett. 9(5), 1752–1758 (2009)
D.C. Marcano, D.V. Kosynkin, J.M. Berlin, A. Sinitskii, Z. Sun, A. Slesarev et al., Improved synthesis of graphene oxide. ACS Nano 4(8), 4806–4814 (2010)
Y. Tang, B.L. Allen, D.R. Kauffman, A. Star, Electrocatalytic activity of nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube cups. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131(37), 13200–13201 (2009)
G. Wang, J. Yang, J. Park, X. Gou, B. Wang, H. Liu et al., Facile synthesis and characterization of graphene nanosheets. J. Phys. Chem. C 112(22), 8192–8195 (2008)
Y. Ito, C. Christodoulou, M.V. Nardi, N. Koch, H. Sachdev, K. Müllen, Chemical vapor deposition of n-doped graphene and carbon films: the role of precursors and gas phase. ACS Nano 8(4), 3337–3346 (2014)
Z. Luo, S. Lim, Z. Tian, J. Shang, L. Lai, B. MacDonald et al., Pyridinic N doped graphene: synthesis, electronic structure, and electrocatalytic property. J. Mater. Chem. 21(22), 8038–8044 (2011)
J. Casanovas, J.M. Ricart, J. Rubio, F. Illas, J.M. Jiménez-Mateos, Origin of the large N 1s binding energy in X-ray photoelectron spectra of calcined carbonaceous materials. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 118(34), 8071–8076 (1996)
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by The National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 51272176 and 51472180), Key Project of Tianjin Municipal Natural Science Foundation of China (13JCZDJC33900 and 14JCZDJC32200), National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2012CB933600), Tianjin City High School Science and Technology Fund Planning Project (20140310), and the Youth Foundation of Tianjin Normal University (5RL128).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Feng, JM., Dong, L., Han, Y. et al. Efficient exfoliation N-doped graphene from N-containing bamboo-like carbon nanotubes for anode materials of Li-ion battery and Na-ion battery. Appl. Phys. A 120, 471–478 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-015-9245-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-015-9245-6