Edge-nitrogen doped porous carbon for energy-storage potassium-ion hybrid capacitors

They published their work on March. 4th in Energy Material Advances, a Science Partner Journal (https://spj.science.org/journal/energymatadv).

"The development of cost-effective and high-performance electrochemical energy storage devices is imperative," said paper's corresponding author Wei Chen, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). "Currently, lithium-ion batteries still dominate the market, but they are limited in both lithium as a resource and in their power densities."

Chen explained that potassium-ion hybrid capacitors (PIHCs) has several significant advantages as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, especially to dual-carbon potassium ion hybrid capacitors (DC-PIHCs) with capacitive carbon cathode and battery-type carbon anode due to their low cost and high power/energy density.

"Currently, for battery-type carbon anodes, the slow reaction kinetics and huge volume expansion result in poor rate performance and short long-cycle lifespan, which fail to match with those of capacitive cathodes." Chen said. "Therefore, it is significant to develop carbonaceous anodes with superior rate performance and long cycle life for DC-PIHCs."

To improve electrochemical performance, various strategies have been developed for adjusting the microstructure of carbonaceous materials, such as heteroatom doping and  porous structure construction. Nowadays, the synthesis methods of porous carbon usually adopt various templates, which increased the cost and generated a lot of byproducts.

Moreover, different types of nitrogen doping exhibited distinct roles in carbon materials. It was widely accepted that pyrrolic nitrogen and pyridinic nitrogen are electrochemically active sites in carbon materials, while graphitic nitrogen doped into the carbon lattice has no effect on K⁺ adsorption. Therefore, it is necessary to explore facile and economical strategies for the synthesis of high-concentration edge-nitrogen (pyrrolic nitrogen and pyridinic nitrogen) doped porous carbons.

Chen said, "In this paper, we developed a template-free strategy for preparation of high-concentration edge-nitrogen doped porous carbon (NPC) anode of DC-PHIC derived from D (+)-glucosamine hydrochloride (DGH) and carboxylated chitosan (CC), which includes two steps of hydrothermal polymerization and high-temperature carbonization. Our aim is to provide inspiration for future research in the field."

"BET and XPS analysis demonstrated that NPC presents large specific surface area (523.2 m²/g) and exhibits high edge-nitrogen doping level of 5.19 at%, which improved K⁺ adsorption and intercalation capabilities." Chen said.

"As a result, the NPC anode displayed a high capacity of 315.4 mA h g^-1 at 0.1 A g^-1 and a capacity of 189.1 mA h g^-1 at 5 A g^-1 over 2000 cycles." Chen said. "The assembled NPC//CMK-3 PIHC delivers a high energy density of 71.1 W h kg^-1 with only 0.0025% capacity decay per cycle at the power density of 771.9 W kg^-1 over 8000 cycles."

Chen is also affiliated with the Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale. Other contributors include Zhen Pan, Yitai Qian, Lidong Sun, Yang Li and Zuodong Zhang, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, USTC; Ke Li, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Sensors, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Smart Agricultural Technology and Equipment, School of Information and Computer, Anhui Agricultural University.

The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant KY2060000150, GG2060127001, WK2060000040) supported this work.

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Reference
Authors: ZHEN PAN, KE LI, LIDONG SUN, YANG LI, ZUODONG ZHANG, YITAI QIAN, AND WEI CHEN
Title of original paper: A High-Concentration Edge-Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon Anode via Template Free Strategy for High-Performance Potassium-Ion Hybrid Capacitors
Journal: Energy Material Advances
DOI: 10.34133/energymatadv.0080
Affiliations: ¹Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Hefei National Research Center  for  Physical  Sciences  at  the  Microscale,  University  of  Science  and  Technology  of  China,  Hefei,  China. ²Key Laboratory of Agricultural Sensors, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Smart Agricultural Technology and Equipment, School of Information and Computer, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, China.

About Dr. Wei Chen:

Dr. Wei Chen is a professor at the department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science in the University of Science and Technology of China and the Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale. Prof. Chen obtained his B.S. degree in materials physics from University of Science and Technology in Beijing in 2008 and his Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2013. He then worked as a postdoc at Stanford University in 2014 and as a scientist at EEnotech in 2018 before joining in the University of Science and Technology of China in 2019. Prof. Chen has published more than 110 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals, including Nature Energy, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications, PNAS, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Advanced Materials, Energy & Environmental Science, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Joule, Matter, Nano Letters, ACS Nano, with a total citation over 12000 times and an H-index of 53. Prof Chen's research interests involve advanced materials and technologies for energy storage and production.