Bioselective Synthesis of a Porous Carbon Collector for High-Performance Sodium-Metal Anodes

Biomass-derived carbon materials prepared via pyrolysis from natural wood structures show potential for a storage application. Natural wood is composed of multiple carbon sources, including lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose, which influence the formation and microstructure of pyrolysis carbon. However, the mechanism is not fully understood. In this work, vast lignin is selectively consumed via biodegradation with fungi from basswood. The results demonstrate that the as-prepared carbon material has a short-range ordered graphitic structure after thermal treatment. The improved graphitization degree of carbon suggests that cellulose is beneficial to graphite formation during pyrolysis. The elevated graphitization degree helps to improve the charge transfer and the thermodynamic stability of the electrode reaction. As a proof of concept, the obtained carbon current collector as a sodium-metal anode can undergo cycling at an areal capacity of 10 mAh cm^-2 for over 4500 h and yield an excellent Coulombic efficiency of >99.5%.