Preparation of Carbon Materials for Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes from Hemicellulose Mimetic (Xylan) Blended with Waste Polyurethane

A sustainable and efficient strategy is proposed to fabricate nitrogen-doped porous carbon anodes for lithium-ion batteries by co-carbonization of xylan, a representative hemicellulose, and waste polyurethane (WPU), followed by KOH activation. Xylan provides abundant oxygen functionalities to generate micropores, while WPU serves as both a carbon and nitrogen source, introducing diverse nitrogen functionalities (pyridinic, pyrrolic, graphitic, and oxidized N) into the carbon framework. As a result, the optimized composite (XPUC) delivers a high reversible capacity of 606 mAh g −1 at 0.1 A g −1 , excellent cycling stability with 96% capacity retention after 200 cycles, and superior rate capability.