Engineering Mesoporous Structure in Amorphous Carbon Boosts Potassium Storage with High Initial Coulombic Efficiency

摘要

Amorphous carbon shows great potential as an anode material for high-performance potassium-ion batteries;however,its abundant defects or micropores generally capture K ions,thus resulting in high irreversible capacity with low initial Coulombic efficiency(ICE)and limited practical application.Herein,pore engineering via a facile self-etching strategy is applied to achieve mesoporous carbon(meso-C)nanowires with interconnected framework.Abundant and evenly distributed mesopores could provide short K^+ pathways for its rapid diffusion.Compared to microporous carbon with highly disordered structure,the meso-C with Zn-catalyzed short-range ordered structure enables more K^+to reversibly intercalate into the graphitic layers.Consequently,the mesoC shows an increased capacity by ~100 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 A g^-1,and the capacity retention is 70.7% after 1000 cycles at 1 A g^-1.Multiple in/ex situ characterizations reveal the reversible structural changes during the charging/discharging process.Particularly,benefiting from the mesoporous structure with reduced specific surface area by 31.5 times and less defects,the meso-C generates less irreversible capacity with high ICE up to 76.7%,one of the best reported values so far.This work provides a new perspective that mesopores engineering can effectively accelerate K^+ diffusion and enhance K^+ adsorption/intercalation storage.