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Recycle spent graphite to defect-engineered, high-power graphite anode

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Abstract

Graphite is a dominant anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to its outstanding electrochemical performance. However, slow lithium ion (Li+) kinetics of graphite anode restricts its further application. Herein, we report that high-temperature shock (HTS) can drive spent graphite (SG) into defect-rich recycled graphite (DRG) which is ideal for high-rate anode. The DRG exhibits the charging specific capacity of 323 mAh/g at a high current density of 2 C, which outperforms commercial graphite (CG, 120 mAh/g). The eminent electrochemical performance of DRG can be attributed to the recovery of layered structure and partial remaining defects of SG during ultrafast heating and cooling process, which can effectively reduce total strain energy, accelerate the phase transition in thermodynamics and improve the Li+ diffusion. This study provides a facile strategy to guide the re-graphitization of SG and design high performance battery electrode materials by defect engineering from the atomic level.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52171219 and 91963113).

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  1. Jiawei Luo and Jingchao Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Jiawei Luo, Jingchao Zhang, Zhaoxin Guo, Zhedong Liu, Shuming Dou, Yanan Chen & Wenbin Hu

  2. Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Wei-Di Liu

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  1. Jiawei Luo
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  2. Jingchao Zhang
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  3. Zhaoxin Guo
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Correspondence to Yanan Chen or Wenbin Hu.

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Luo, J., Zhang, J., Guo, Z. et al. Recycle spent graphite to defect-engineered, high-power graphite anode. Nano Res. 16, 4240–4245 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5244-z

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