Nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets with excellent lithium storage properties

In this work, nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets serving as lithium storage materials are presented. The nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets were prepared by heat treatment of graphite oxide under an ammonia atmosphere at 800 °C for 2 h. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were employed to characterize the prepared product as nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets with a doping level of ca. 2% nitrogen, where the N binding configuration of the graphene includes 57.4% pyridinic, 35.0% pyrrolic and 7.6% graphitic N atoms. Galvanostatic charge/discharge experiments revealed that these nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets exhibited a high reversible capacity (900 mA h g−1 at 42 mA g−1 (1/20 C)), excellent rate performance (250 mA h g−1 at a current density of 2.1 A g−1 (2.5 C)), and significantly enhanced cycling stability, which demonstrated nitrogen-doped graphene nanosheets to be a promising candidate for anode materials in high rate lithium-ion batteries.