Fei Xu1,2, Yixuan Zhai1, En Zhang2, Qianhui Liu1, Guangshen Jiang1, Xiaosa Xu1, Yuqian Qiu1, Xiaoming Liu3, Hongqiang Wang1, Stefan Kaskel2. 1. State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Center for Nano Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University and Shaanxi Joint Laboratory of Graphene (NPU), Xi'an, 710072, P. R. China. 2. Inorganic Chemistry, Technische Universität Dresden, Bergstrasse 66, 01062, Dresden, Germany. 3. State Key Laboratory for Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, P. R. China.
Abstract
The development of ultrastable carbon materials for potassium storage poses key limitations caused by the huge volume variation and sluggish kinetics. Nitrogen-enriched porous carbons have recently emerged as promising candidates for this application; however, rational control over nitrogen doping is needed to further suppress the long-term capacity fading. Here we propose a strategy based on pyrolysis-etching of a pyridine-coordinated polymer for deliberate manipulation of edge-nitrogen doping and specific spatial distribution in amorphous high-surface-area carbons; the obtained material shows an edge-nitrogen content of up to 9.34 at %, richer N distribution inside the material, and high surface area of 616 m2 g-1 under a cost-effective low-temperature carbonization. The optimized carbon delivers unprecedented K-storage stability over 6000 cycles with negligible capacity decay (252 mA h g-1 after 4 months at 1 A g-1 ), rarely reported for potassium storage.
The development of ultrastable carbon materials for n class="Chemical">potassium storage poses key limitations caused by the huge volume variation and sluggish kinetics. Nitrogen-enriched porous carbons have recently emerged as promising candidates for this application; however, rational control over nitrogen doping is needed to further suppress the long-term capacity fading. Here we propose a strategy based on pyrolysis-etching of a pyridine-coordinated polymer for deliberate manipulation of edge-nitrogen doping and specific spatial distribution in amorphous high-surface-area carbons; the obtained material shows an edge-nitrogen content of up to 9.34 at %, richer N distribution inside the material, and high surface area of 616 m2 g-1 under a cost-effective low-temperature carbonization. The optimized carbon delivers unprecedented K-storage stability over 6000 cycles with negligible capacity decay (252 mA h g-1 after 4 months at 1 A g-1 ), rarely reported for potassium storage.