Use of Vegetable Raw Materials as Electrode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries

Kazakhstan possesses a large scale of cereal crops, bulrush, seeded fruits, grasslands and forests which are significant renewable resources for carbon materials. The agricultural sector, upon processing seeded fruits (e.g. apricots), rice, and others, produces large amounts of high carbon content wastes. It is known that obtaining carbon from these biomasses (wastes) is a cheap way of their utilization/disposal. There are existing technologies to produce so-called activated (porous) carbons mainly using thermolysis. Biomass waste could be considered as a potential material source for the preparation of porous carbons, which may have enhanced electrochemical capacitive performance in capacitors and cycling efficiency in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Biomass derived activated carbon (AC) is a promising solid carrier due to its high adsorption capacity specific surface area, hierarchical porous structure, and can exhibit excellent electrical conductivity. The main aim of this study was to research the influence of the properties of different vegetable raw materials, such as apricot stone (AS), rice husk (RH), walnut shell (WSh) on their electrochemical properties. The results of the electrochemical investigations showed good cyclic reversibility and stability. The battery with carbon electrode from walnut shells performed the highest capacity of 1000 mAhg-1 over 150 cycles. Keywords: biomass, activated carbon, porous, electrode, lithium-ion ba