Surfactant-assisted synthesis of multi-dimensional hierarchical polymer particles and derived carbon anode for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

Micro/nanostructured polymer particles with elaborate hierarchical configurations have garnered enormous research interest in recent years, owing to their exceptional structure-dependent physicochemical properties and great potential in widespread applications. However, traditional synthetic routes toward hierarchical polymer architectures generally involve tedious procedures, toxic etchants for template elimination, hydrothermal treatment, complex polymerization systems, or high-cost raw materials, which significantly restrict their scalable production and practical applications. In this work, we report a universal, straightforward, and template/hydrothermal-free surfactant-assisted precipitation polymerization approach to construct a variety of multi-dimensional (0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D) hierarchical polymer particles under ambient conditions. The reaction proceeds rapidly within 10 minutes using low-cost commercial dialdehyde and amino monomers. By introducing different surfactants, diverse well-defined morphologies including nanospheres, hollow microspheres, capsule-like structures, prism clusters, coral-like and star-like architectures can be readily obtained. As a typical paradigm, the star-like polymer product is subjected to high-temperature carbonization and employed as a superior anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Remarkably, it delivers a reversible capacity of 301 mAh g⁻¹ even after 4000 continuous cycles at a high current density of 5 A g⁻¹. This one-pot, controllable, and scalable strategy opens up new possibilities for the structural design of functional polymer and carbon nanomaterials, and will further promote their development in advanced energy-related applications.