Development of carbon materials from biomass by-products for high energy metal-sulfur battery applications

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Carbon materials with a variety of structures, textures and properties have been widely used for industrial applications. Among them, self-standing carbon films possess many unique advantages, including: (i) two-dimensional (2D) structure easily matching with electrode shape, (ii) small volume and large surface area effectively improving utilization of material and facilitating charge transport and (iii) easy transfer and binder-free beneficial to optimize device performance. Recently, heteroatom-doped carbon materials, especially the nitrogen-doped ones, receive special attention due to the capacity of activating the adjacent carbon atoms and achieving improved performance. The earth-abundant renewable and sustainable biomass can be a low-cost carbon precursor for the synthesis of activated porous carbons with high surface area, ordered porosity and tunable pore sizes; especially the biopolymers containing nitrogen can provide the decorated carbon structure. In our previous works, nitrogen-doped graphitic carbon fibers have been fabricated from plant proteins and demonstrated their potential to be used as supercapacitors. However, there is a lack of fundamental investigation of relationship between polymer structures and graphitic carbon formation, and the applications of biomass-derived carbon materials remain to be better explored. Therefore, this project aims to develop nitrogen-doped self-standing carbon films from two biomass by-products largely available in Quebec, corn protein and chitosan, and evaluate their potential applications in lithium-sulfur (Li-S) and sodium-sulfur (Na-S) batteries. The proposed research project will have direct benefits to Quebecers and Canadians by way of: (i) contributing to our fundamental understanding of converting biomass into carbon materials; (ii) generating highly functional carbon materials with desirable properties and value-added applications in battery and clean energy research; and (iii) creating HQP with interdisciplinary skills, expertise, and hands-on experience. The diversity of the team members will be carefully considered, and we are all dedicated to encouraging equity, diversity, and inclusion within our research team while maintaining highest standards.