Carbon has recently been recovered from discarded tires and demonstrated a high capacity, higher rate capability and the potential to replace commercial graphite as an active anode material in lithium-ion batteries. The tailored morphology of the tire-derived carbon using a sulfonation process followed by pyrolysis yielded a high-quality carbon and the applicability of these hard carbons was demonstrated in several energy storage systems including lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and supercapacitors. We will report on our recent neutron studies on the surface chemistry of the carbon material, vibrational spectroscopy of the molecular structure, chemical bonding such as C-H bonding, and intermolecular interactions of the tire-derived carbon materials. Commercial graphite and unmodified/non-functionalized tire-derived carbon are also used for comparison. The sulfonation of the initial raw tire powders could possibly remove the aliphatic hydrogen containing groups (>CH₂ and -CH₃ groups) and reduce the number of heteroatoms that connect to carbon. The absence of these functional groups improved the surface chemistry of the tire-derived carbon and provides a pathway to develop and improve advanced energy storage materials.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.