Cotton Cloth-Induced Flexible Hierarchical Carbon Film for Sodium-Ion Batteries

Graphical Through the layers : Cotton cloth-induced flexible hierarchical carbon film is facilely obtained with distinctive carbon nature, unique porous microstructure and crosslinked-network, as flexible substrate for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). It exhibits favorable flexibility, fast kinetics, and high structural and electrochemical stability, due to predominant surface-controlled reaction mechanism, effective surface chemistry and favorable compatibility with electrolytes. Flexible substrates play a decisive effect on the functions of flexible energy storage devices. However, systematical investigation and understanding of often-used flexible carbon-based substrates is lack. In this work, a reliable cotton cloth induced flexible hierarchical carbon film is facilely obtained. The synthesized-carbonized cotton cloth (SCC) owns distinctive carbon nature with perfect order level and defects, unique porous microstructure, and crosslinked-network. The SCC exhibits favorable flexibility, fast kinetics, high structural and electrochemical durability with high performance (239.4 mAh g −1 and 155.2 mAh g −1 at 0.01 A g −1 in the ether- and ester-based electrolyte in sodium-ion batteries, respectively), superior to commonly-used commercial carbon cloth and graphene film. In addition, the predominant surface-controlled reaction mechanism, effective solid electrolyte interphase and favorable compatible features with different electrolytes are also intensively studied.