Tailoring Highly N-Doped Carbon Materials from Hexamine-Based MOFs: Superior Performance and New Insight into the Roles of N Configurations in Na-Ion Storage

To prepare highly N-doped carbon materials (HNCs) as well as to determine the influence of N dopants on Na-ion storage performance, hexamine-based metal-organic frameworks are employed as new and efficient precursors in the preparation of HNCs. The HNCs possess reversible capacities as high as 160 and 142 mA h g(-1) at 2 A g(-1) (approximate to 8 C) and 5 A g(-1) (approximate to 20 C), respectively, and maintain values of 145 and 123 mA h g(-1) after 500 cycles, thus exhibiting excellent rate and long-term cyclic performance. Based on systematic analysis, a new insight into the roles of the different N configurations in Na-ion storage is proposed. The adsorption of Na ions on pyridinic-N (N-6) and pyrrolic-N (N-5) is fully irreversible, whereas the adsorption on graphitic-N (N-Q) is partially reversible and the adsorption on N-oxide (N-O) is fully reversible. More importantly, the N-6/N-Q ratio is an intrinsic parameter that reflects the relationship between the N configurations and carbon textures for N-doped carbons prepared from in situ pyrolysis of organic precursors. The cyclic stability and rate-performance improve with decreasing N-6/N-Q ratio. Therefore, this work is of great significance for the design of N-doped carbon electrodes with high performance for sodium ion batteries.