Direct production of nitrogen-doped porous carbon from urea via magnesiothermic reduction

With high capacities, as well as controllable morphologies and compositions, doped carbons represent attractive options for metal-ion battery electrode materials. In this work, we demonstrated a facile one-pot, one-step production of nitrogen-doped porous carbon (NPC) from an abundant and inexpensive urea precursor. The unique porous structure composed of an abundance of graphene nanosheets with high nitrogen doping level for the obtained NPC materials resulted in very promising electrochemical performances when used in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). A high reversible lithium storage capacity of 1781 mAh/g was obtained after 500^th cycle, with an enhanced cycling stability and rate capability. The method presented in this work may provide a simple, clean, economical and scalable strategy for production of NPC as a feasible and promising anode material for energy storage applications.