Chemically Induced Compatible Interface in Pyrolyzed Bacterial Cellulose/Graphene Sandwich for Electrochemical Energy Storage

Abstract

Herein, a three-step approach toward a multi-layered porous PBC/graphene sandwich has been developed, in which the chemical bonding interactions have been successfully enhanced via esterification between the layers of pyrolyzed bacterial cellulose (PBC) and graphene. Such a chemically induced compatible interface has been demonstrated to contribute significantly to the mass transfer efficiency when the PBC/graphene sandwich is deployed as electrode material for both supercapacitors and lithium–sulfur batteries. The high specific capacitance of the supercapacitors has been increased by three times, to 393 F g−1 at 0.1 A g−1. A high initial discharge specific capacity (~1100 mAhg−1) and high coulombic efficiency (99% after 300 cycles) of the rPG/S-based lithium–sulfur batteries have been achieved.