(24a) Chemical Pre-Lithiation of Lignin-Derived Hard Carbon Aimed for Lithium-Ion Battery Anode with High Rate Performance

Recently, lignin-derived hierarchical porous carbons have been widely studied as promising electrode materials for energy storage applications because lignin is renewable and abundantly available. Chemical activation agents cause lignin to release some carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms, forming porous structures in lignin macromolecules, thus enhance the lithium storage and adsorption capacity. However, these pore structures also reduce the initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) significantly. This large initial capacity loss results in high lithium ions consumption in the electrolyte and needs to be compensated by excess amount of cathode material, posing severe challenges for practical battery applications. New technology is need to solve the problem of low ICE of lignin-based electrode materials.

In this study, pre-lithiation through the spontaneous chemical reaction between the aryl etherification reagent was used to improve the ICE of the lignin-based negative electrode material. Our results showed that the ICE of the activated lignin-based negative electrode material was increased from 45% to 80%. It indicates that treated lignin is a promising renewable electrode material for battery applications due to of its high yield, low price, high ICE, high capacity and stable cycling. It can be used in electrochemical energy storage and conversion devices, such as supercapacitors, fuel cells, lithium ion batteries, etc.