Cut-Price Fabrication of Free-standing Porous Carbon Nanofibers Film Electrode for Lithium-ion Batteries

• Main Authors: Pengfei Zhao, Wei Li, Shiqing Fang, Ji Yu, Zhenyu Yang, Jianxin Cai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-03-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: Li-ion batteries; energy storage device; porous carbon nanofiber; thin film; free-standing; electrospinning; air etching; anode
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/9/5/1016

Freestanding thin film electrodes are competitive candidate materials for high-performance energy stockpile equipment due to their self-supporting structure and because they lack any polymer binder or conductive additive. In our work, a porous carbon nanofiber film (PCNF) electrode has been synthesized via a convenient and low-cost electrospinning approach and the following carbonization and air etching process. The obtained PCNF electrode sample shows a high reversible capacity (1138 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C), remarkable rate capacity (101.2 mAh g−1 at 15 C), and superior cycling stability with a lower capacity decay rate of ~0.013% each cycle upon 1000 cycles (278 mAh g−1 at 5 C). The prominent electrochemical performance of PCNF can be put down to the stable self-supporting conductive structure and the porous feature in each carbon nanofiber, which will significantly promote the transfer tempo of Li-ion and electron and relieve the large volume change during inserting lithium ion. More interestingly, this work exhibits a low-cost and primitive strategy to fabricate thin film anode for lithium-ion batteries.