Developing advanced anode materials is one of the effective strategies to enhance the electrochemical performance of sodiumion batteries (SIBs). Herein, inspired by the biological central nervous system structure, we report a facile and efficient strategy to fabricate the three-dimensional hierarchical neural network-like carbon architectures, where the glucose-derived hard carbon (HC) nanospheres are in situ assembled and embedded in carbon nanotube (CNT) network nanostructure (HC/CNT hybrid networks). The HC nanospheres with large carbon interlayer spacing help to decrease the diffusion length of sodium ions and the interconnected CNT networks enable the rapid electron transfer during charge/discharge process. Benefiting from these structure merits, the as-made HC/CNT hybrid networks can deliver a superior rate capacity of 162 mA h g− 1 at the current density of 5 A g− 1. Additionally, it exhibits excellent cycling performance with a capacity retention rate of 86.3% after 140 cycles. This work offers a promising candidate anode material for SIBs and a new prospect towards carbon-based composites design, simultaneously.

Glucose-derived hard carboncarbon nanotube neural network architectures for enhanced sodium ion storage
    Abstract
    1 Introduction
    2 Experimental section
        2.1 Synthesis of CNT networks
        2.2 Synthesis of HCCNT hybrid networks
        2.3 Materials characterization
        2.4 Electrochemical characterization
    3 Results and discussion
    4 Conclusion
    Acknowledgements 
    References

• Yingbo Kang(School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Liaoning University of Technology, Jinzhou 121001, Liaoning, China)
• Yinglong Weng(School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Liaoning University of Technology, Jinzhou 121001, Liaoning, China)
• Xiaotong Han(School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 401331, China) Corresponding author
• Jianping Zhang(School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 401331, China)
• Xu Yu(Institute of Innovation Materials and Energy, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225002, Jiangsu, China)
• Bo Wang(Jilin Provincial Key Laboratory of Straw‑Based Functional Materials, Institute for Interdisciplinary Biomass Functional Materials Studies, Jilin Engineering Normal University, Changchun 130052, Jilin, China)