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Acrylic fiber is one of three important synthetic fibers in the world. The disposal and reuse of large number of waste acrylic fibers from fabric manufacturers or waste recovery is an urgent economic and environmental issue. Here, a porous carbon was derived from waste acrylic fibers via pre-oxidized, carbonization and KOH activation. Furthermore, we adopted melamine as nitrogen source to dope the porous carbon materials. When used as the anode of lithium ion batteries, this nitrogen-doped porous carbon shows high reversible capacity of ca. 1200 mA h g −1 after 50 cycles at 0.1 A g −1 . Reversible capacities of 550 and 370 mA h g −1 are obtained at higher current densities of 1 and 5 A g −1 after 500 cycles, respectively. The outstanding electrochemical performance are a result of its large mesopore volume, high-level N-doping (especially, pyridinic-N), large quantity of edge defects, and three-dimensional hierarchical porous architecture. This paper demonstrates that the reuse of waste industrial acrylic fibers as energy storage materials is a promising method for both energy and environmental fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract A simple co-precipitation approach to fabricate the Ni-NiCo 2 O 4 @ZnCo 2 O 4 yolk-shell nano-tetrahedron composites has been developed, which significantly improve the structural stability and conductivity of composite materials and exhibit excellent cycling and rate performance for lithium ion batteries. Highlights • A Ni-NiCo 2 O 4 @ZnCo 2 O 4 yolk-shell nano-tetrahedron has been prepared. • The capacity is up to 1571.9 mA h g−1 at 0.1 A g−1. • Ni-NiCo 2 O 4 @ZnCo 2 O 4 exhibited excellent rate capability and cycle stability. • Its excellent electrochemical performance came from yolk-shell architecture and the Ni-doping. Abstract Transition-metal oxide materials have gained significant attention as high-performance anode materials for lithium ion batteries. Great advances have been achieved in the development of micro/nanostructured materials with controllable shape and tunable pore size. In this work, a facile co-precipitation approach has been developed to fabricate the Ni-NiCo 2 O 4 @ZnCo 2 O 4 yolk-shell nano-tetrahedron composites, which significantly improve the structural stability and conductivity of the material. The Ni-NiCo 2 O 4 @ZnCo 2 O 4 is proven to exhibit excellent cycling and rate performance for lithium ion batteries, such as the charge capacity of 1571.9 mA h g−1 after 70 cycles at 0.1 A g−1, 1097.5 mA h g−1 after 600 cycles at 1.0 A g−1. This superior electrochemical performance may attribute to the yolk-shell architecture and the Ni-doping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]