Rapid Sodium-Ion Storage in Hard Carbon Anode Material Derived from Ganoderma lucidum Residue with Inherent Open Channels

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) with great promise are regarded as a potential substitute or supplement to lithium-ion batteries due to the abundant resource of sodium. One of the great challenges is to develop commercially available and high-performance anode materials. Here, the anode-active hard carbons are produced through one-step carbonization of abandoned Ganoderma lucidum residue. The carbon product inherits the opened channels that stemmed from the polypore fungi, which provide fast transport channels for sodium ions to enable a capability of 124 mA h g–1 at 5 A g–1. Additionally, the open channels are in the the micrometer range associated with an appropriate surface area, thus contributing a comparatively enhanced initial Coulombic efficiency (73%). Moreover, the larger carbon layer spacing (0.39 nm) facilitates fast electrolyte penetration and facile sodium-ion intercalation. As a result, a specific capacity of 290 mA h g–1 at 0.02 A g–1 and the reversible capacity without decay after 1500 cycles even at 5 A g–1 are achieved. Such conjoined advantages of a Ganoderma lucidum residue-derived hard carbon anode, containing a sufficiently reversible capacity, enhanced initial Coulombic efficiency, and distinguished cycling and rate behavior encourage researchers to explore more novel-structured bioresidues as promising hard carbon precursors to prepare anode materials for SIBs.