Hollow carbon nanospheres are synthesized via the hydrothermal carbonization of glucose in the presence of nanosized latexes templates. The resulting disordered carbon hollow nanospheres exhibits excellent characteristics in terms of reversible capacities, cycling performance, and rate capability for application as an anode material in Na‐based batteries.

Notably, many significant breakthroughs for a new generation of supercapacitors have been reported in recent years, related to theoretical understanding, material synthesis and device designs. Herein, we summarize the state-of-the-art progress toward mechanisms, new materials, and novel device designs for supercapacitors. Firstly, fundamental understanding of the mechanism is mainly focused on the relationship between the structural properties of electrode materials and their electrochemical performances based on some in situ characterization techniques and simulations. Secondly, some emerging electrode materials are discussed, including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), MXenes, metal nitrides, black phosphorus, LaMnO, and RbAgI/graphite. Thirdly, the device innovations for the next generation of supercapacitors are provided successively, mainly emphasizing flow supercapacitors, alternating current (AC) line-filtering supercapacitors, redox electrolyte enhanced supercapacitors, metal ion hybrid supercapacitors, micro-supercapacitors (fiber, plane and three-dimensional) and multifunctional supercapacitors including electrochromic supercapacitors, self-healing supercapacitors, piezoelectric supercapacitors, shape-memory supercapacitors, thermal self-protective supercapacitors, thermal self-charging supercapacitors, and photo self-charging supercapacitors. Finally, the future developments and key technical challenges are highlighted regarding further research in this thriving field.

Nitrogen-doped activated porous carbon fibres (ACFs) were prepared as anode materials for Na-ion batteries. They exhibit excellent electrochemical performance, especially rate performance. The excellent rate performance is ascribed to the fibre-like morphology and the facilitated charge transfer. The influence of nitrogen functionalities on charge transfer and electrochemical performance of N-doped carbon anodes for Na ion batteries is discussed.