A universal method for N/B codoped carbon bubbles for enhanced potassium ion storage

Carbon materials are widely regarded as highly promising anode materials for potassium ion batteries due to their features of tunable structure, affordable price, excellent conductivity, and favorable chemical stability. However, due to the sluggish potassium storage kinetics and relatively severe volumetric effect brought about by the large radius of potassium ions, carbon materials often suffer from unsatisfactory reversible capacity and weak rate performance. In this work, we propose to prepare a distinctive dual-atom doped carbon bubble material by a simple self-templating method. This unique structural design results in a high specific surface area, large layer spacing, abundant pore structure and enriched active sites. Owing to these merits, the N, B-doped carbon exhibits a high reversible capacity (534.0 mA h g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 after 200 cycles), long-term cycling stability and excellent rate capacity when used as the anode for potassium-ion batteries. The results of electrochemical kinetic studies indicate that capacitance control effects play a dominant role in the total energy storage mechanism. Furthermore, this preparation method has good generalizability and is expected to have applications in other batteries, supercapacitors or catalysis.