Defect‐Rich Soft Carbon Porous Nanosheets for Fast and High‐Capacity Sodium‐Ion Storage

Abstract Soft carbon has attracted tremendous attention as an anode in rocking‐chair batteries owing to its exceptional properties including low‐cost, tunable interlayer distance, and favorable electronic conductivity. However, it fails to exhibit decent performance for sodium‐ion storage owing to difficulties in the formation of sodium intercalation compounds. Here, microporous soft carbon nanosheets are developed via a microwave induced exfoliation strategy from a conventional soft carbon compound obtained by pyrolysis of 3,4,9,10‐perylene tetracarboxylic dianhydride. The micropores and defects at the edges synergistically leads to enhanced kinetics and extra sodium‐ion storage sites, which contribute to the capacity increase from 134 to 232 mAh g −1 and a superior rate capability of 103 mAh g −1 at 1000 mA g −1 for sodium‐ion storage. In addition, the capacitance‐dominated sodium‐ion storage mechanism is identified through the kinetics analysis. The in situ X‐ray diffraction analyses are used to reveal that sodium ions intercalate into graphitic layers for the first time. Furthermore, the as‐prepared nanosheets can also function as an outstanding anode for potassium‐ion storage (reversible capacity of 291 mAh g −1 ) and dual‐ion full cell (cell‐level capacity of 61 mAh g −1 and average working voltage of 4.2 V). These properties represent the potential of soft carbon for achieving high‐energy, high‐rate, and low‐cost energy storage systems.