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Supporting InformationA novel design strategy of practical carbon anode material from single
lignin-based surfactant source for sodium-ion batteries
Changhao Li‡a, Yi Sun‡a, Qiujie Wua, Xin Lianga, Chunhua Chenb, and Hongfa Xiang*a
a School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced
Functional Materials and Devices, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, Anhui, China.
bCAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversions, Department of Materials Science and
Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Anhui Hefei 230026, China
* Corresponsing author. Email: [email protected]
‡ Changhao Li and Yi Sun contributed equally to this work.
Electronic Supplementary Material (ESI) for ChemComm.This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2020
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Experimental Details
Materials synthesis
Hard carbon microsphere was prepared via a facile spray drying process and subsequent
pyrolysis carbonization. 6 g of sodium lignin sulfonate was dissolved in 200 mL of deionized
water and stirred 6 h. During the spray drying, the precursor solution was deliver into the
atomizer via a peristaltic pump with a flow rate of 550 mL h-1. The small droplets obtained after
atomization entered the conversion chamber through a carrier gas with a flow rate of 25 M3 h-
1. The inlet temperature was 130 °C. Then water solvent of the droplets evaporates quickly and
shrinks to produce solid particle. Subsequently, the yellow powders were collected and then
heated at 500 °C for 3 h with Argon flow in a tube furnace. The products were washed with
10% diluted hydrochloric acid and deionized water. Then, the samples were dried in the oven
at 80 °C overnight and carbonized at 1300 °C for 2 h in Argon atmosphere to obtain the target
products.
Material characterizations
The morphologies of the sample were investigated by SEM (Gemini 300) and a TEM (FEI
Tecnai G2 F30). The structure of the sample was characterized by XRD (Bruker D2) using Cu-
Kα radiation (0.1518 nm) and Raman spectra (LabRAM HR Evolution) using 532 nm argon
laser. The porous structure and surface area were analyzed by the nitrogen
adsorption/desorption apparatus (Micromeritics ASAP 2460).
Electrochemical measurements
The HCM electrodes were fabricated with 80% active materials, 10% acetylene black, 5%
carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), and 5% styrene butadiene rubber (SBR). The loading mass of
the active materials was controlled at around 1 mg cm-2. The coin-type half cells (CR2032)
were assembled in Argon filled glove box using a sodium metal sheet as counter electrode,
HCM electrode as working electrode, glass fiber (GF/D, Whatman) as separator, and a solution
of 1M NaClO4 dissolved in ethylene carbonate (EC) and diethyl carbonate (DEC) (1:1, v/v) as
electrolyte. The cells were cycled on the LAND cycler in a voltage range of 0.001–3.0 V. For
GITT measurements, the cell was cycled at 0.1 C with current pulse duration of 0.5 h and
interval time of 2 h. CV test was performed on the electrochemical workstation (Chenhua
CHI660E) between 0 and 3.0 V at a scan rate of 0.1 mV s−1. The electrochemical impedance
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spectroscopy (EIS) test was conducted from 100 kHz to 0.1 Hz. The coin full cell employed
HCM as anode and Na3V2(PO4)3 as cathode (Wcathode/anode=4:1, active material), which was
cycled in a voltage range of 1.0–3.4 V. The separator and electrolyte were the same as those in
half coin cells.
Fig. S1. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) curves.
Fig. S2. The discharge curves under different current densities.
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Fig. S3. Statistical results of plateau and slope capacity.
Fig. S4. The voltage profiles and dQ/dV curves of different cycles (a, b) at 0.1 C; (c, d) at 0.4
C; (e, f) at 1 C.
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Fig. S5. GITT tests. (a, b) GITT potential profiles of HCM for sodiation and desodiation; (c, d)
Sodium ion apparent diffusion coefficients calculated from the GITT potential profiles of
HCM for sodiation and desodiation.
Fig. S6. (a) Initial charge-discharge profile of Na3V2(PO4)3; (b) Cycling performance at 1C of
Na3V2(PO4)3.
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Fig.S7. A photograph demonstrating that a single coin full cell can light up some LEDs
Fig. S8. Initial charge-discharge profile of sodium-ion coin full cell.
Fig. S9. Rate performance of the full cell at various rates in the range of 0.2-2 C.
