Rapeseed Meal-Derived Three-Dimensional Porous Carbon for High-Performance Lithium–Selenium Batteries

Lithium–selenium batteries (LSeBs) have potential applications in mobile electronic devices and electric vehicles due to their high theoretical volume specific capacity (3253 mAh cm−3). However, their cycling performance is poor because of the serve shuttle effect. Porous carbon can restrict the shuttle effect. However, past porous carbon is cumbersome, expensive, and unsuitable for large-scale production. In this work, we develop an annealing/etching method to convert biowaste (Rapeseed meal) to a N, S co-doped three-dimensional porous carbon (NSPC) which is then used as the Se host for LSeBs. The Se/NSPC composite delivers a specific capacity of 496.5 mAh g−1 for 200 cycles at 0.2 C, corresponding to a high-capacity retention of 91.8%. Moreover, the Se/NSPC composite maintains a high capacity over 200 mAh g−1 after 1000 cycles at a high current density of 2 C. Our work provides an efficient approach to addressing biowaste issues while simultaneously facilitating the mass production of economical Se hosts for LSeBs.