Preparation of bamboo carbon fiber and sandwich-like bamboo carbon fiber@SnO2@carbon composites and their potential application in structural lithium-ion battery anodes

PAN-based carbon fibers have been studied in structural lithium-ion batteries (SLIBs), showing many better results and promises. However, the limitation in capacity is urgently solved. To remedy this shortage, one-dimensional (1D) bioinspired bamboo carbon fiber (BCF) and its composite (BCF@SnO2@C) are successfully fabricated. In the BCF@SnO2@C composite, the SnO2 is sandwiched between the BCF template and the coated glucose-derived carbon, showing sandwich-like structure. Due to the combined superiority of bioinspired BCF with good conductivity and buffer effect and the SnO2 with high theoretical specific capacity, the obtained BCF@SnO2@C composites are expected to use as an anode material for traditional lithium-ion batteries and future structural lithium-ion batteries. A high reversible capacity of 627.1 mAh g−1 is maintained over 100 cycles at a current density of 100 mA g−1, showing a huge increase five times as high as the reported carbon fibers in SLIBs. Even at a high current density of 1000 mA g−1, the substantial discharge capacity can still reach 409.1 mAh g−1. These excellent performances in capacity could urgently solve the obsessional issue, the limitation of capacity in current SLIBs when use commercial carbon fibers as anode materials.