High-yield carbon nanofibers drive from nanoporous Cu catalyst alloyed with Ni for sodium storage with high cycling stability

Obtaining high-performance and low-cost anode materials is the critical goal of superior sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). Herein, by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and a specialized nanoporous Cu-Ni alloy catalyst, the high-yield porous carbon nanofibers (CNFs) anode materials are prepared (named as CNFs@Cu-Ni). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that the incorporation of Ni results in a shift of the d-band center of catalyst, specifically from -2.34157 eV to -1.93682 eV. This significant shift elucidates the remarkable adsorption capacity exhibited by the Cu-Ni catalyst towards C2H2, thereby facilitating the catalytic growth of high-performance CNFs. Ultimately, this approach achieves a superior yield of deposited carbon, reaching 258.6% after growth for 1 h. Additionally, The CNFs@Cu-Ni anode presents an outstanding discharge capacity of 193.6 mAh g−1 at 1 A g−1 over 1000 cycles, and it displays exceptional rate capability by maintaining a capacity of 158.9 mAh g−1 even at 5 A g−1 in ether-based electrolyte. Additionally, it also exhibits excellent performance in the CNFs@Cu-Ni//NVP full battery. The excellent battery performance can be attributed to the presence of abundant Na+ adsorption sites on the surface of CNFs@Cu-Ni electrode materials. This study presents a new concept for the advancement of high-performance carbonaceous electrode materials for SIBs.