Title: Highly Conductive, Lightweight, Low-Tortuosity Carbon Frameworks as Ultrathick 3D Current Collectors

Abstract

The growing demand for advanced energy storage techniques and devices has driven the energy storage market to strive for higher performance, longer cycling life, and better safety. Thick electrode design enabling more electroactive materials has the potential to significantly improve the energy density on device level yet faces major challenges of slow ion transport and high deformability. In this work, inspired by natural wood materials with aligned channels along the tree growth direction, a highly conductive, lightweight, and low-tortuosity carbon framework (CF) directly carbonized from natural wood as an ultrathick 3D current collector is demonstrated. Benefiting from the uniqueness of the multichanneled CF, an ultrathick 3D electrode of lithium iron phosphate filled carbon framework with a large thickness of 800 µm and active material mass loading of 60 mg cm^-2 delivers a rational capacity of 7.6 mAh cm^-2 (95 Ah L^-1 based on volume), long cycling life, and lower deformability with enhanced mechanical properties. This work presents a design concept for thick electrode toward high performance energy storage devices that are not limited to lithium-ion batteries.

Authors:

Chen, Chaoji ^[1]; Zhang, Ying ^[2]; Li, Yiju ^[2]; Kuang, Yudi ^[2]; Song, Jianwei ^[2]; Luo, Wei ^[2]; Wang, Yanbin ^[2]; Yao, Yonggang ^[2]; Pastel, Glenn ^[2]; Xie, Jia ^[3]; Hu, Liangbing ^[2]

---

+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology, Wuhan (China). School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, State Key Lab. of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology; Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
2. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
3. Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology, Wuhan (China). School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, State Key Lab. of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology

Publication Date:

Thu May 11 00:00:00 EDT 2017

Research Org.:

Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage (NEES)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

OSTI Identifier:

1388859

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1378807

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC0001160

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Advanced Energy Materials

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 17; Related Information: NEES partners with University of Maryland (lead); University of California, Irvine; University of Florida; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Sandia National Laboratories; Yale University; Journal ID: ISSN 1614-6832

Publisher:

Wiley

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

09 BIOMASS FUELS; 25 ENERGY STORAGE; 42 ENGINEERING; bio-inspired; energy storage (including batteries and capacitors); defects; charge transport; synthesis (novel materials); synthesis (self-assembly); synthesis (scalable processing); 3D current collectors; carbon frameworks; high energy density; low turtuosity; thick electrodes