Polyaniline-Assisted Synthesis of Si@C/RGO as Anode Material for Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries

A novel approach to fabricate Si@carbon/reduced graphene oxides composite (Si@C/RGO) assisted by polyaniline (PANI) is developed. Here, PANI not only serves as “glue” to combine Si nanoparticles with graphene oxides through electrostatic attraction but also can be pyrolyzed as carbon layer coated on Si particles during subsequent annealing treatment. The assembled composite delivers high reversible capacity of 1121 mAh g^–1 at a current density of 0.9 A g^–1 over 230 cycles with improved initial Coulombic efficiency of 81.1%, while the bare Si and Si@carbon only retain specific capacity of 50 and 495 mAh g^–1 at 0.3 A g^–1 after 50 cycles, respectively. The enhanced electrochemical performance of Si@C/RGO can be attributed to the dual protection of carbon layer and graphene sheets, which are synergistically capable of overcoming the drawbacks of inner Si particles such as huge volume change and low conductivity and providing protective and conductive matrix to buffer the volume variation, prevent the Si particles from aggregating, enhance the conductivity, and stabilize the solid–electrolyte interface membrane during cycling. Importantly, this method opens a novel, universal graphene coating strategy, which can be extended to other fascinating anode and cathode materials

Influence of Molecular Weight on Structure and Catalytic Characteristics of Ordered Mesoporous Carbon Derived from Lignin

Bio-renewable lignin has been used as a carbon source for the preparation of porous carbon materials. Nevertheless, up to now, there are few studies about the influence of molecular weight of lignin on the structure and morphology of the ordered mesoporous carbon. Here, we synthesized the ordered mesoporous carbon derived from different molecular weights of lignin and Pluronic F127. Fortunately, we found that molecular weight is an important factor for obtaining highly ordered channels, high specific surface area, and ordered mesoporous carbon. More importantly, the narrow well-defined mesoporous channel could exert a spatial restriction effect to some extent, which can serve as nanoreactors for efficient reactions and enhance catalytic performance. The highly ordered mesoporous carbon from lignin is a good candidate for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis catalyst supports