Fabrication of boron-doped carbon fibers by the decomposition of B4C and its excellent rate performance as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries

A facile route, for the first time, was developed to fabricate boron-doped carbon fibers (BDCFs). Boron was doped into mesosphere pitch-based carbon fibers (CFs) by exposing the CFs in a vapor of boron by the decomposition of boron carbide. The microstructure of BDCFs was characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD and Raman spectroscopy. When used as anode materials for the lithium-ion batteries, BDCFs electrode exhibits an improved performance. Concretely, the specific capacity of BDCFs still had a value of over 400 mAh g(-1) after 100 cycles. Moreover, BDCFs exhibits better rate capability and less hysteresis in comparison to the pristine CFs. Such enhanced lithium storage capability can be attributed to the improvement of graphitization properties and the high amount of defects induced by boron. (C) 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.