Synthesis of the electrode materials of sodium-ion storage devices from sustainable precursors via green methods is highly desirable. In this work, we fabricated a unique N, O dual-doped biocarbon nanosheet with hierarchical porosity by direct pyrolysis of low-cost cuttlebones and simple air oxidation activation (AOA) technique. With prolonging AOA time, thickness of the carbon sheets could be reduced controllably (from 35 to 5 nm), which may lead to tunable preparation of carbon nanosheets with a certain thickness. Besides, an unexpected increase in N-doping amount from 7.5 to 13.9 atom % was observed after AOA, demonstrating the unique role of AOA in tuning the doped heteroatoms of carbon matrix. This was also the first example of increasing N-doping content in carbons by treatment in air. More importantly, by optimizing the thickness of carbon sheets and heteroatom doping via AOA, superior sodium capacity-cycling retention-rate capability combinations were achieved. Specifically, a current state-of-the-art Na+ storage capacity of 640 mAh g-1 was obtained, which was comparable with the lithium-ion storage in carbon materials. Even after charging/discharging at large current densities (2 and 10 A g-1) for 10 000 cycles, the as-obtained samples still retained the capacities of 270 and 138 mAh g-1, respectively, with more than 90% retention. The assembled sodium-ion capacitors also delivered a high integrated energy-power density (36 kW h kg-1 at an ultrahigh power density of 53 000 W kg-1) and good cycling stability (90.5% of capacitance retention after 8000 cycles at 5 A g-1).
Keywords: air oxidation activation; biomass-derived carbon; cuttlebones; multiheteroatom doped; sodium-ion capacitor.