Popcorn Inspired Porous Macrocellular Carbon: Rapid Puffing Fabrication from Rice and Its Applications in Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

Porous materials have been thriving as promising candidates for vast applications in current electrochemical energy storage field. [1][2][3] The rational design of porous architectures with hierarchical and interconnected pore networks is always strongly considered by scientific community. [4][5][6][7] In parallel with the microporous (pore size ≤ 2 nm) and mesoporous (2 nm ≤ pore size ≤ 50 nm) materials, macroporous (50 nm ≤ pore size) materials emerge and hold tremendous potentials due to their significant advantages with interconnected frameworks offering improved structural stability, as well as large channels for accelerated mass mobilization and accessibility advantageous over micro/mesoporous materials. [8] In addition, many electrochemical energy storage applications require an open cellular structure with a reasonable combination of hierarchical pore size and distribution, of which the macropores work together with mesopores and micropores to accelerate transport mass (e.g., chemicals and electrolyte), thus highlighting the necessity and importance of macropores in a porous hierarchy. [9] Porous macrocellular carbon, one member of macroporous material family, is of particularly great interest due to their excellent chemical, mechanical, and thermal stability coupled with good conductivity and high surface area. Thus, various carbonaceous porous materials (e.g., 3D rGO, [10] porous graphene, [11][12][13] carbon nanorods, [14] carbon nanotube networks, [15] microporous carbon, [16] hierarchical porous carbon, [17] biomass derived carbon, [18][19][20][21] and their hybrids) [22][23][24] are endowed with a wide range of applications in lithium ion batteries, [25] sodium ion batteries, [26] and supercapacitors. [27] Diverse techniques have been developed to fabricate macroporous carbon materials including template, [27] suspension, [28] microfluidics, [29] membrane/microchannel emulsification, [9] and seeded emulsion polymerization, [30] etc. However, such methodologies are tedious, requiring multiple synthetic steps, caustic chemical treatments, and long curing times. Therefore, it is with great interest to develop facile approaches for large-scale construction of macroporous materials.Puffing process has been extensively accepted to produce 3D edible and degradable foam from starch-based materials (e.g., (2 of 8)rice, corn, wheat, potato). [31] As a typical puffing method, the instantaneous puffing (IP) involving compression and instantaneous release processes is widely accepted for popcorn fabrication. In general, the grains are first compressed in a heated and sealed container. Then, the starch-containing feedstocks are puffed/expanded in a flash by instantaneous release of clamping force of the sealed container at a high temperature of ≈200-300 °C and a large pressure of 0.5-1.5 MPa. The bulk starch-containing feedstocks are instantaneously transformed into expanded 3D porous macrocellular materials with volume and surface area increased by dozens of times through the facile IP process. This technolog...

Coupled Biphase (1T‐2H)‐MoSe2 on Mold Spore Carbon for Advanced Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…Simultaneously, nanostructure engineering is essential for MoSe 2 due to the fact that the bulk MoSe 2 has a small number of active edge sites and poor electron transportation . Meanwhile, phase modulation engineering must be taken on nanostructured MoSe 2 to boost HER performance.…”

Rational Design of a Dual‐Function Hybrid Cathode Substrate for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

“…First, sulfur and its discharge product lithium sulfide are insulating in nature, which deteriorates the active-material utilization and leads to sluggish redox-reaction kinetics. [4,5] Intensive studies have been devoted to addressing the aforementioned problems, including new cathode design, [6][7][8][9] functional interlayer/separator fabrication, [10][11][12] efficient anode protection, [13][14][15][16] and optimized electrolyte formulas. The dissolved polysulfides tend to migrate from the cathode to the anode side, causing unwanted parasitic reactions with lithium-metal anode and active-material loss from the sulfur cathode.…”

Self N-Doped Porous Interconnected Carbon Nanosheets Material for Supercapacitors

“…[17] . 经计算得到 N-ICNs 中 N 元素的含量为 2.88%, 明显高于松果 [18] , 莲 蓬 [19] , 咖啡豆 [20] 和大米 [21] 等富含蛋白质的生物质碳化 [22] . [23] .…”