In-Situ-Activated
N‑Doped Mesoporous Carbon
from a Protic Salt and Its Performance in Supercapacitors
Tiago
C. Mendes
Changlong Xiao
Fengling Zhou
Haitao Li
Gregory P. Knowles
Matthias Hilder
Anthony Somers
Patrick C. Howlett
Douglas R. MacFarlane
10.1021/acsami.6b11716.s001
https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/In-Situ-Activated_N_Doped_Mesoporous_Carbon_from_a_Protic_Salt_and_Its_Performance_in_Supercapacitors/4451180
Protic salts have been recently recognized
to be an excellent carbon
source to obtain highly ordered N-doped carbon without the need of
tedious and time-consuming preparation steps that are usually involved
in traditional polymer-based precursors. Herein, we report a direct
co-pyrolysis of an easily synthesized protic salt (benzimidazolium
triflate) with calcium and sodium citrate at 850 °C to obtain
N-doped mesoporous carbons from a single calcination procedure. It
was found that sodium citrate plays a role in the final carbon porosity
and acts as an in situ activator. This results in a large surface
area as high as 1738 m<sup>2</sup>/g with a homogeneous pore size
distribution and a moderate nitrogen doping level of 3.1%. X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy (XPS) measurements revealed that graphitic and pyridinic
groups are the main nitrogen species present in the material, and
their content depends on the amount of sodium citrate used during
pyrolysis. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigation showed
that sodium citrate assists the formation of graphitic domains and
many carbon nanosheets were observed. When applied as supercapacitor
electrodes, a specific capacitance of 111 F/g in organic electrolyte
was obtained and an excellent capacitance retention of 85.9% was observed
at a current density of 10 A/g. At an operating voltage of 3.0 V,
the device provided a maximum energy density of 35 W h/kg and a maximum
power density of 12 kW/kg.
2016-12-05 00:00:00
XPS
Supercapacitors Protic salts
graphitic
sodium citrate
density
TEM
capacitance
pore size distribution
transmission electron microscopy
nitrogen doping level
N-doped mesoporous carbons