Bamboo - A potential lignocellulosic biomass for preparation of hard carbon anode used in sodium ion battery

Abstract

Selection of the suitable lignocellulosic biomass precursor is critical for obtaining high-performance hard carbon materials (HCs) for sodium ion battery (SIBs); herein, we utilized representative lignocellulosic biomass including hardwood (eucalyptus), softwood (scots pine), bamboo (moso bamboo) and straw (juncao) to evaluate the influence of biomass origin on the structure of the HCs and performance of SIBs. The results showed that bamboo derived carbon (BC) with relatively high disordered region, pseudo-graphite region and carbonyl content exhibits the superior performance with reversible capacity up to 344.3 mAh g⁻¹ at 20 mA g⁻¹, cycle stability of 82.6 % after 100 cycles at 1 A g⁻¹. By contrast, softwood HC and hardwood HC show moderate reversible capacity about 300 mAh g⁻¹ at 20 mA g⁻¹; whereas, the straw HC with comparable slop capacity is pulled down due to the obviously low plateau capacity. This work provides feasibility of the potential applications of the bamboo in the SIBs.