Xylitol-assisted ball milling of graphite to prepare long-cycle and high-capacity graphene nanosheet as lithium-ion anode materials

A simple and effective xylitol-assisted mechanochemical stripping method has been used to peel graphite into graphene nanosheets (GNSs). Using xylitol as a ball milling aid can increase the shear force in the ball milling process and well get over the Van der Waals interlayer force between adjacent graphite layers. The prepared graphene has large horizontal size, thin thickness and high output. As a result, the performance of the batteries using the prepared GNSs as the negative electrode material is significantly better than that of industrial graphite. The initial capacity of GNSs electrode is 536 mAh·g−1, which is much more than that of commercial graphite electrode (296 mAh·g−1). After 550 cycles, the reversible capacity can still maintain at 500 mAh·g−1 with retention rate of 93.2%, which is also much higher than that of commercial graphite electrode (233 mAh·g−1 with retention rate of 78.7%). The xylitol-assisted mechanochemical exfoliation method designed in this paper offers a new method for large-scale preparation of GNSs with excellent electrochemical performance as the negative electrode material of lithium-ion batteries.