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Enhanced sodium storage performance in flexible free-standing multichannel carbon nanofibers with enlarged interlayer spacing

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Abstract

A flexible and free-standing multichannel carbon nanofiber (MCNF) film electrode was fabricated through electrospinning and carbonization. After high-temperature treatment of MCNFs in vacuum, the obtained fibers (MCNFs-V) had a dilated interlayer spacing of graphene sheets (0.398 nm) and an ultra-low specific surface area (15.3 m2/g). When used as an anode for sodium-ion batteries, the MCNFs-V showed a discharge plateau below 0.1 V, and sodium was intercalated into the stacked graphene sheets layers during the sodiation process. The MCNFs-V exhibited a reversible and high specific capacity of 222 mAh/g at a current density of 0.1 A/g after 100 cycles and excellent long-term cycling stability, which was superior to that of MCNFs. The improved sodium storage performance was attributed to the unique microstructure of the MCNFs-V with an enlarged interlayer spacing of graphene sheets for sodium intercalation. The MCNFs-V electrode holds great promise as an anode material for commercial sodium-ion batteries.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21373195, 51674228, and 51622210), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFB0100305), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. WK3430000004 and WK2320000034), the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology. Q. S. W. is supported by Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (No. 2013286).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Beibei Yuan, Yan Yu & Qingsong Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Linchao Zeng, Xizhen Sun & Yan Yu

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  1. Beibei Yuan
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  2. Linchao Zeng
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  4. Yan Yu
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Correspondence to Yan Yu or Qingsong Wang.

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Enhanced sodium storage performance in flexible free-standing multichannel carbon nanofibers with enlarged interlayer spacing

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Yuan, B., Zeng, L., Sun, X. et al. Enhanced sodium storage performance in flexible free-standing multichannel carbon nanofibers with enlarged interlayer spacing. Nano Res. 11, 2256–2264 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1847-1

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