Cooking carbon with protic salt: Nitrogen and sulfur self-doped porous carbon nanosheets for supercapacitors

By Ling Miao, Dazhang Zhu, Mingxian Liu, Huimei Duan, Zhiwei Wang, Yaokang Lv, Wei Xiong, Quanjing Zhu, Liangchun Li, Xiaolan Chai and 1 more. Chemical Engineering Journal, 2018

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Abstract We develop a novel self-doped and self-template strategy to synthesize N, S doped porous carbon nanosheets (N/S-HCSs) by pre-carbonization and post-activation of a low-cost protic salt of p-phenylenediamine toluenesulfate ([pPD][2CH3PhSO3]). [pPD][2CH3PhSO3] is obtained by a simple neutralization reaction at room temperature and behaves as an “all-in-one” precursor, serving as C, N, S sources and a self-template. As-prepared N/S-HCSs possess large specific surface area and nanosheet geometry which provide enough adsorbing sites for charge accumulation and shorten diffusion distance of electrolyte ions at electrode/electrolyte interface. Besides, N/S-HCSs exhibit unique porous nanoarchitecture with uniform ultramicropores and a well-developed network of supermicropores and mesopores, which guarantees highly efficient ion-highways for electrolyte diffusion and transport. Furthermore, incorporated heteroatoms in the carbon framework structure improve the electrical conductivity and surface wettability, and provide extra pseudocapacitance. As a result, N/S-HCS electrode delivers superior electrochemical performance including high gravimetric capacitance (280 F g−1 at 1.0 A g−1), good rate performance (134F g−1 at 50 A g−1) and cycling stability (94.4% retention after 10,000 cycles at 2.0 A g−1) in 6 M KOH electrolyte. The present innovative synthetic concept can be easily implemented, without complicated procedure and particular template, and thus opens up a new window towards the simple and highly efficient synthesis of well-designed carbon-based materials for supercapacitor applications.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c62388007b05327bfe43f8bdc514943beb18e253

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