Morphology-Persistent Carbonization of Self-Assembled Block Copolymers for Multifunctional Coupled Two-Dimensional Porous Carbon Hybrids

Two-dimensional (2D) porous carbon materials have attracted great attention for various applications in energy conversion/storage, catalysis, and adsorption because of their unique physicochemical properties, but controllable fabrication of well-defined 2D porous carbon hybrids from self-assembled molecular precursors without specific templates has been rarely realized. Herein, morphology-persistent carbonization of self-assembled diblock copolymers have been demonstrated to precisely synthesize a class of multifunctional coupled 2D porous carbon hybrids composed of molecular-scale silica-decorated porous carbon nanosheets embedded with various metal sulfides (MS/SiO_x@PCNs). The MS/SiO_x@PCNs integrate the merits of 2D porous carbon skeletons with high conductivity and a shortened ion diffusion length, MS nanoparticles with high sodium storage capacity, and SiO_x nanodomains with strong immobilization of polysulfides, and thus demonstrate excellent sodium storage as anode materials in sodium-ion batteries. As a proof-of-concept, the Co₉S₈/SiO_x@PCNs exhibit a superior rate capability and an ultralong lifetime of 5000 cycles with a high capacity retention of 94% at 10 A g^–1.