A novel “holey-LFP / graphene / holey-LFP” sandwich nanostructure with significantly improved rate capability for lithium storage

Conversion of Natural Biowaste into Energy Storage Materials and Estimation of Discharge Capacity through Transfer Learning in Li-Ion Batteries

To simultaneously reduce the cost of environmental treatment of discarded food waste and the cost of energy storage materials, research on biowaste conversion into energy materials is ongoing. This work employs a solid-state thermally assisted synthesis method, transforming natural eggshell membranes (NEM) into nitrogen-doped carbon. The resulting NEM-coated LFP (NEM@LFP) exhibits enhanced electrical and ionic conductivity that can promote the mobility of electrons and Li-ions on the surface of LFP. To identify the optimal synthesis temperature, the synthesis temperature is set to 600, 700, and 800 °C. The NEM@LFP synthesized at 700 °C (NEM 700@LFP) contains the most pyrrolic nitrogen and has the highest ionic and electrical conductivity. When compared to bare LFP, the specific discharge capacity of the material is increased by approximately 16.6% at a current rate of 0.1 C for 50 cycles. In addition, we introduce innovative data-driven experiments to observe trends and estimate the discharge capacity under various temperatures and cycles. These data-driven results corroborate and support our experimental analysis, highlighting the accuracy of our approach. Our work not only contributes to reducing environmental waste but also advances the development of efficient and eco-friendly energy storage materials.

Thermally assisted conversion of biowaste into environment-friendly energy storage materials for lithium-ion batteries

This study reports the thermally assisted solid-state synthesis of a cathode comprising a biowaste-derived nitrogen-doped carbon coating on LiFePO₄ (LFP) for Li-ion batteries. The eggshell membrane (ESM), which mainly consists of collagen, is converted into nitrogen-doped carbon with good ionic and electrical conductivity during thermally driven decomposition. The ESM-coated LFP (ESM@LFP) containing pyrrolic nitrogen, pyridinic nitrogen, and oxidized pyridinic nitrogen has been motivated to improve its ionic and electrical conductivity, that promotes the movement of Li-ions and electrons on the LFP surface. ESM@LFP exhibits stable cyclability and ~16.3% of increased specific discharge capacity for 100 cycles at a current rate of 1C compared to bare LFP.