Construction and preparation of nitrogen-doped porous carbon material based on waste biomass for lithium-ion batteries

Biomass derived carbon materials have been widely studied as electrodes in energy storage devices due to their renewable nature, low-cost and tunable physical/chemical properties. However, the influences of different treatments for biomass derived carbon materials are still lack of in-depth discussion. In this work, we investigate the effects of the treatment for biomass on the structure and composition of the resulted carbon materials. Especially, the optimal N-doped porous carbon (NPCCS), which was fabricated by H2SO4-assisted hydrothermal treatment and subsequent pyrolysis process using corn silk as raw material, shows a unique interconnected layered nanostructure with ultra-high nitrogen content (18.79 at%). As a result, the NPCCS electrode displays excellent cycling stability and outstanding rate performance in lithium-ion half-cell test and shows high first reversible specific capacity of 523.6 mAh g−1 in full-cell test. This work provides some guidance for preparing biomass derived carbon materials with superior electrochemical performance for the applications in advanced energy storage devices.