Yunchao Li

Studies on supercapacitor electrode material from activated lignin-derived mesoporous carbon.

We synthesized mesoporous carbon from pre-cross-linked lignin gel impregnated with a surfactant as the pore-forming agent and then activated the carbon through physical and chemical methods to obtain activated mesoporous carbon. The activated mesoporous carbons exhibited 1.5- to 6-fold increases in porosity with a maximum Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface area of 1148 m(2)/g and a pore volume of 1.0 cm(3)/g. Both physical and chemical activation enhanced the mesoporosity along with significant microporosity. Plots of cyclic voltammetric data with the capacitor electrode made from these carbons showed an almost rectangular curve depicting the behavior of ideal double-layer capacitance. Although the pristine mesoporous carbon exhibited a range of surface-area-based capacitance similar to that of other known carbon-based supercapacitors, activation decreased the surface-area-based specific capacitance and enhanced the gravimetric specific capacitance of the mesoporous carbons. A vertical tail in the lower-frequency domain of the Nyquist plot provided additional evidence of good supercapacitor behavior for the activated mesoporous carbons. We have modeled the equivalent circuit of the Nyquist plot with the help of two constant phase elements (CPE). Our work demonstrated that biomass-derived mesoporous carbon materials continue to show potential for use in specific electrochemical applications.

Superior Conductive Solid-like Electrolytes: Nanoconfining Liquids within the Hollow Structures

The growth and proliferation of lithium (Li) dendrites during cell recharge are currently unavoidable, which seriously hinders the development and application of rechargeable Li metal batteries. Solid electrolytes with robust mechanical modulus are regarded as a promising approach to overcome the dendrite problems. However, their room-temperature ionic conductivities are usually too low to reach the level required for normal battery operation. Here, a class of novel solid electrolytes with liquid-like room-temperature ionic conductivities (>1 mS cm(-1)) has been successfully synthesized by taking advantage of the unique nanoarchitectures of hollow silica (HS) spheres to confine liquid electrolytes in hollow space to afford high conductivities (2.5 mS cm(-1)). In a symmetric lithium/lithium cell, the solid-like electrolytes demonstrate a robust performance against the Li dendrite problem, preventing the cell from short circuiting at current densities ranging from 0.16 to 0.32 mA cm(-2) over an extended period of time. Moreover, the high flexibility and compatibility of HS nanoarchitectures, in principle, enables broad tunability to choose desired liquids for the fabrication of other kinds of solid-like electrolytes, such as those containing Na(+), Mg(2+), or Al(3+) as conductive media, providing a useful alternative strategy for the development of next generation rechargeable batteries.

Waste Tire Derived Carbon-Polymer Composite Paper as Pseudocapacitive Electrode with Long Cycle Life.

Recycling hazardous wastes to produce value-added products is becoming essential for the sustainable progress of our society. Herein, highly porous carbon (1625 m(2)  g(-1)) is synthesized using waste tires as the precursor and used as a supercapacitor electrode material. The narrow pore-size distribution and high surface area led to good charge storage capacity, especially when used as a three-dimensional nanoscaffold to polymerize polyaniline (PANI). The composite paper was highly flexible, conductive, and exhibited a capacitance of 480 F g(-1) at 1 mV s(-1) with excellent capacitance retention of up to 98% after 10,000 charge/discharge cycles. The high capacitance and long cycle life were ascribed to the short diffusional paths, uniform PANI coating, and tight confinement of the PANI in the inner pores of the tire-derived carbon through π-π interactions, which minimized the degradation of the PANI upon cycling. We anticipate that the same strategy can be applied to deposit other pseudocapacitive materials to achieve even higher electrochemical performance and longer cycle life-a key challenge for redox active polymers.

Tailored recovery of carbons from waste tires for enhanced performance as anodes in lithium-ion batteries

Morphologically tailored pyrolysis-recovered carbon black is utilized in lithium-ion battery anodes with improved capacity as a potential solution for adding value to waste tire-rubber-derived materials. Micronized tire rubber was digested in a hot oleum bath to yield a sulfonated rubber slurry that was then filtered, washed, and compressed into a solid cake. Carbon was recovered from the modified rubber cake by pyrolysis in a nitrogen atmosphere. The chemical pretreatment of rubber produced a carbon monolith with higher yield than that from the control (a fluffy tire-rubber-derived carbon black). The carbon monolith showed a very small volume fraction of pores of widths 3–5 nm, prominent nanoporosity (pore width < 2 nm), reduced specific surface area, and an ordered assembly of graphitic domains. Electrochemical studies revealed that the recovered-carbon-based anode had a higher reversible capacity than that of graphite. Anodes made with a sulfonated tire-rubber-derived carbon and a control tire-rubber-derived carbon exhibited an initial coulombic efficiency of 71% and 45%, respectively. The reversible capacity of the cell with the sulfonated tire rubber-derived carbon as the anode was 390 mA h g−1 after 100 cycles, with nearly 100% coulombic efficiency. Our success in producing a higher performance carbon material from waste tire rubber for potential use in energy storage applications adds a new avenue to tire rubber recycling.

Membrane‐Based Gas Separation Accelerated by Hollow Nanosphere Architectures

The coupling of hollow carbon nanospheres with triblock copolymers is a promising strategy to fabricate mixed-matrix membranes. This is because the symmetric microporous shells combine with the hollow space to promote gas transport, and the unique soft-rigid molecular structure of triblock copolymers can accommodate a high loading of fillers without a significant loss of mechanical strength.

A POM–organic framework anode for Li-ion battery

Rechargeable Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are currently the dominant power source for portable electronic devices and electric vehicles, and for small-scale stationary energy storage. However, one bottleneck of the anode materials for LIBs is the poor cycling performance caused by the fact that the anodes cannot maintain their integrity over several charge–discharge cycles. In this work, we demonstrate an approach to improving the cycling performance of lithium-ion battery anodes by constructing an extended 3D network of flexible redox active polyoxometalate (POM) clusters with redox active organic linkers, herein described as POMOF. This architecture enables the accommodation of large volume changes during cycling at relatively high current rates. For example, the POMOF anode exhibits a high reversible capacity of 540 mA h g−1 after 360 cycles at a current rate of 0.25C and a long cycle life at a current rate of 1.25C (>500 cycles).

Thermoreversible Morphology and Conductivity of a Conjugated Polymer Network Embedded in Block Copolymer Self-Assemblies

Self-assembly of block copolymers provides numerous opportunities to create functional materials, utilizing self-assembled microdomains with a variety of morphology and periodic architectures as templates for functional nanofillers. Here new progress is reported toward the fabrication of thermally responsive and electrically conductive polymeric self-assemblies made from a water-soluble poly(thiophene) derivative with short poly(ethylene oxide) side chains and Pluronic L62 block copolymer solution in water. The structural and electrical properties of conjugated polymer-embedded self-assembled architectures are investigated by combining small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering, coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, and impedance spectroscopy. The L62 solution template organizes the conjugated polymers by stably incorporating them into the hydrophilic domains thus inhibiting aggregation. The changing morphology of L62 during the micellar-to-lamellar phase transition defines the embedded conjugated polymer network. As a result, the conductivity is strongly coupled to the structural change of the templating L62 phase and exhibits thermally reversible behavior with no signs of quenching of the conductivity at high temperature. This study shows promise for enabling more flexibility in processing and utilizing water-soluble conjugated polymers in aqueous solutions for self-assembly based fabrication of stimuli-responsive nanostructures and sensory materials.