Fast-Charging Sodium-Ion Batteries Enabled by Molecular-Level Designed Nitrogen and Phosphorus Codoped Mesoporous Soft Carbon

Soft carbons have attracted extensive interests as competitive anodes for fast-charging sodium-ion batteries (SIBs); however, the high-rate performance is still restricted by their large ion migration barriers and sluggish reaction kinetics. Herein, we show a molecular design approach toward the fabrication of nitrogen and phosphorus codoped mesoporous soft carbon (NPSC). The key to this strategy lies in the chemical cross-linking reaction between polyphosphoric acid and p-phenylenediamine, associated with pyrolysis induced in-situ self-activation that creates mesoporous structures and rich heteroatoms within the carbon matrix. Thanks to the enlarged interlayer spacing, reduced ion diffusion length, and plentiful active sites, the obtained NPSC delivers a superb rate capacity of 215 mAh g⁻¹ at 10 A g⁻¹ and an ultralong cycle life of 4,700 cycles at 5 A g⁻¹. Remarkably, the full cell shows 99% capacity retention during 100 continuous cycles, and maximum energy and power densities of 191 Wh kg⁻¹ and 9.2 kW kg⁻¹, respectively. We believe that such a synthetic protocol could pave a novel venue to develop soft carbons with unique properties for advanced SIBs.