Herein, a cost-effective, green,
and sustainable method was developed
to fabricate N self-doped carbon nanofibers (CChCNs) as anodes for
high-performance lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). After simple direct
pyrolysis of biomass chitin nanocrystals (ChCNs), a novel precursor,
the obtained CChCNs presented a cross-linked fibrous structure with
large specific surface areas and hierarchical porous structures, which
was instrumental in charge-storage capacity for LIBs. As expected,
the as-prepared CChCNs exhibited distinguished lithium storage properties.
It was found that the increase in conductivity could optimize charge
and discharge under high current densities. CChCNs900 possessed a
reversible specific capacity of 215 mA h g–1 at
1.5 A g–1. In addition, all the samples presented
excellent cycle stability, possessing capacity retention of 46.2,
67.4, 77.4, and 74.5% after a 500 cycle at a high current density
of 1 A g–1. This novel strategy provided a successful
avenue to prepare high-performance LIB anodes from biomass nanomaterials.