A green phenolic resin/needle coke scrap–based carbon/carbon composite as anode material for lithium-ion batteries

In this work, phenolic resin served as binder to recycle ultrafine needle coke scrap, and then carbon/carbon composite was prepared through high-temperature graphitization. The influences of phenolic resin content on the microstructure characteristics of carbon/carbon composite were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, laser particle size, and nitrogen adsorption–desorption. When the mass ratio of ultrafine needle coke scrap to phenolic resin is 1:2, the carbon/carbon composite shows an average particle size of 19.17 μm, which is higher than that of ultrafine needle coke scrap (3 μm) and is close to that of commercial needle coke (19.12 μm). Moreover, the carbon/carbon composite as anode material for LIBs exhibits the 1st and 50th discharge capacity of 360.8 mAh/g and 352.6 mAh/g. Additionally, its coulombic efficiency after 50th cycles is over 99%. In principle, the synthesized carbon/carbon composite exhibits a comparable electrochemical performance to commercial needle coke.