Performance of Coal-derived Spherical Porous Carbon as Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries

Spherical porous carbon nanomaterials is a promising candidate as anode materials for next-generation LIBs due to its large specific surface area which decreases the lithium ion transport distance. Spherical porous carbon nanomaterials with uniform morphology were prepared by arc-discharging followed by chemical activation using coal as precursor. The as-prepared spherical porous carbon samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Raman spectrope (Raman), the nitrogen adsorption-desorption, galvanostatic charge and discharge method and so on. The result indicated that the spherical porous carbon materials have high specific capacity of 1188.9 mAh/g, which exceeds the commercial mesophase carbon spheres (372 mAh/g).