Marine-Biomass-Derived Porous Carbon Sheets with a Tunable N-Doping Content for Superior Sodium-Ion Storage

Synthesis of the electrode materials of sodium-ion storage devices from sustainable precursors via green methods is highly desirable. In this work, we fabricated a unique N, O dual-doped biocarbon nanosheet with hierarchical porosity by direct pyrolysis of low-cost cuttlebones and simple air oxidation activation (AOA) technique. With prolonging AOA time, thickness of the carbon sheets could be reduced controllably (from 35 to 5 nm), which may lead to tunable preparation of carbon nanosheets with a certain thickness. Besides, an unexpected increase in N-doping amount from 7.5 to 13.9 atom % was observed after AOA, demonstrating the unique role of AOA in tuning the doped heteroatoms of carbon matrix. This was also the first example of increasing N-doping content in carbons by treatment in air. More importantly, by optimizing the thickness of carbon sheets and heteroatom doping via AOA, superior sodium capacity–cycling retention–rate capability combinations were achieved. Specifically, a current state-of-the...