Graphene-coated pyrogenic carbon as an anode material for lithium battery

In this work, cotton fibers and pyrene-dispersed graphene sheets were used to produce graphene-coated pyrogenic carbon as an anode material for lithium battery. The graphene sheets were wrapped around the cotton fibers by simply dipping the fabric in a graphene/pyrene-derivative suspension. And then the cotton/graphene textile was annealed at 700 °C in a quartz tube furnace under Ar flow conditions. During the annealing process, the gaps between separated graphene sheets were “soldered” by “glue” molecules (aromatic molecular surfactant) to form graphene-coated pyrogenic carbon. Because of the unique electric properties of the graphene “skin” on the pyrogenic carbon, the flexible graphene-coated pyrogenic carbon showed relatively large storage capacity to lithium. Galvanostatic charge-discharge experiments also showed that the graphene-coated pyrogenic carbon electrode provided a reversible discharge capacity as high as 288 mA h g−1 even after 50 cycles and thus can be used an anode material in lithium battery.