Abstract
Owing to its high aromaticity and carbon content, technical lignin as the by-product of chemical pulping and bio-refining industry can be converted into lignin-derived porous carbon (LPC) materials after activation, which is a promising strategy for high-value utilization. In particular, LPC with a higher surface area and graphitization will have a broad prospect as the electrode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, the structure of technical lignin varies greatly due to its different industrial processes and botany sources, which remarkably affects the activation process and electrochemical properties of LPC. Herein, we study the effect of oxygen/carbon (O/C) ratio and molecular weight on the structure of LPC by exploring the effect of four kinds of technical lignin on K2CO3 activation. High O/C ratio can promote LPC to maintain a high specific surface area (SSA). High molecular weight and low O/C ratio were beneficial to increase the graphitization degree and keep the porous structure of LPC. The electrochemical performance evaluation showed that high graphitization and stable porous structure were beneficial for lithium-ion storage. Therefore, LPC from enzymatic hydrolysis lignin (EHL) had long cycle performance (490 mAh · g−1 at a current density of 400 mA · g−1) and excellent rate performance compared to lignin from chemical pulping.
Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Research funding: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB1501503), National Natural Science Foundation of China (funder Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001809) (21878114 and 21690083) and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (2018B030311052 and 2017B090903003).
Employment or leadership: None declared.
Honorarium: None declared.
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Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/hf-2019-0107).
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