Surface Polymerization and Controlled Pyrolysis: Tailorable Synthesis of Bumpy Hollow Carbon Spheres for Energy Storage

Qianyi Tao; Zhifeng Zhu; Sunjie Ye; Gaojian Lin; Hui Chen; Yingfeng Tu; Guanghui Bai; Lu Zhang; Xiaoming Yang

doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c00307

Surface Polymerization and Controlled Pyrolysis: Tailorable Synthesis of Bumpy Hollow Carbon Spheres for Energy Storage

Langmuir. 2021 Apr 6;37(13):4007-4015. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c00307. Epub 2021 Mar 22.

Authors

Qianyi Tao¹, Zhifeng Zhu¹, Sunjie Ye², Gaojian Lin³, Hui Chen¹, Yingfeng Tu¹, Guanghui Bai⁴, Lu Zhang⁴, Xiaoming Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Suzhou Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Design and Precision Synthesis, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, P. R. China.
² School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, U.K.
³ Department of Mechanics Engineering, School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China.
⁴ Science and Technology on Space Physics Laboratory, No. 1, Nandahongmen Road, Fengtai District, Beijing 100076, China.

PMID: 33750135
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c00307

Abstract

Architectural design of hollow carbon spheres (HCSs) plays a vital role in improving their performance and expanding applications. The tailorable synthesis of bumpy or asymmetric HCSs with a refined structure remains a challenge. Herein, bumpy HCSs (BHCSs) and bumpy concave HCSs (BCHCSs) have been engineered. The synthesis involves the formation of a core/shell precursor via the surface polymerization of pyrrole monomers on polystyrene nanoparticles, followed by the controlled pyrolysis process under different conditions. In comparison with HCSs, the concave hollow structure can reduce the excessive interior cavity and maintain prevalent merits of hollow structures; the bumpy shell can improve the surface area and number of active sites, thus improving the kinetics as energy storage devices. As a result, among BCHCSs, BHCSs, and HCSs, BCHCSs exhibit optimal electrochemical performance. The lithium-ion hybrid capacitors employing BCHCSs as an anode can deliver an energy density of 0.2182 kW h kg^-1 at a power density of 0.2235 kW kg^-1. Overall, this study provides an innovative design and strategy for constructing unique carbon nano-architectures for energy storage.