Template‐Induced Self‐Activation Route for Hierarchical Porous Carbon Derived from Interpenetrating Polymer Networks as Electrode Material for Supercapacitors

Abstract

Hierarchical porous textures of carbon‐based electrode materials are advantageous for applications in supercapacitors, owing to their reasonable pore size distribution and large surface area. In this work, a facile yet effective one‐step carbonization method for the preparation of hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) derived from interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) of phenol‐formaldehyde resin (PF) and sodium polyacrylate (PAAS) is proposed. Phenol‐formaldehyde prepolymer can be introduced into the inter network space of PAAS to form IPNs in which only hydrogen‐bonding interactions exist between them. During the carbonization process of IPNs, the PF networks tend to form a carbon matrix, which generates large amounts of micropores. While the PAAS evaporates into gaseous products, serving as a template for micro‐, meso‐, and macropores. Due to such synergistic effects, a carbon material with a large surface area of 1764 m2 g−1 and a large pore volume of 1.111 cm3 g−1 is constructed with an interconnected hierarchical porous carbon network structure. With such unique carbon structure characteristics, the electrode material of HPC delivers a high specific capacitance of 201 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and excellent cyclability of approximately 100 % of capacitance retention after 10000 cycles. The ideal capacitive behavior from IPNs provides new insights for the production of carbonaceous materials for high‐performance supercapacitors applications.

Nitrogen‐Doped Mesoporous Carbon Electrodes Prepared from Templating Propylamine‐Functionalized Silica

“…Mesoporous Carbons (MCs) are materials with pore size distribution in the range 2–50 nm. They are ubiquitously employed in catalysis, in separation technology and because of their good conductivity, combined with mechanical, chemical and electro‐ chemical stability, they are widely used in electrocatalysis as well as in energy storage systems, like supercapacitors …”

“…MCs are hydrophobic and inert in nature; however, their surface modification with heteroatoms such as nitrogen, sulfur, boron, phosphorus can promote both the electrochemical activity and the electrolyte wettability needed for the implementation of an electrode in an electrochemical device. Nitrogen doped mesoporous carbons are without any doubts the most investigated materials since they can induce a beneficial change on both the electronic and structural properties of the carbon supports, in particular N‐doped carbons are by themselves active versus the oxygen reduction reaction; they can trigger metal nanoparticle catalytic activity by metal support interaction or possess enhanced specific capacitance …”

Comparative Study on Supercapacitive Performances of Hierarchically Nanoporous Carbon Materials With Morphologies From Submicrosphere to Hexagonal Microprism

“…In principle, supercapacitors can be divided into electronic double-layer capacitors (EDLCs) and pseudocapacitors. Compared with pseudocapacitors, the energy storage mechanism of EDLCs is via physical accumulation of charge at the electrode–electrolyte interface, which will result in fast charge–discharge rates and long lifetimes (Wang L. L. et al, 2017 ; Guo et al, 2018 ; Chen et al, 2019 ; Muzaffara et al, 2019 ; Lv et al, 2020 ). During the past few decades, bulk carbon materials including active carbon (Lee et al, 2017 ; Zhang X. R. et al, 2019 ), mesoporous carbon (Bo et al, 2019 ; Wei et al, 2020b , c ), graphene (El-Kady et al, 2016 ; Wang F. X. et al, 2017 ), carbon nanotube (Afzal et al, 2017 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ), and carbide-derived carbon (Dyatkin et al, 2016 ; Brousse et al, 2017 ) have been extensively documented as electrode materials for EDLCs.…”

Polythiophene Grafted onto Single‐Wall Carbon Nanotubes through Oligo(ethylene oxide) Linkages for Supercapacitor Devices with Enhanced Electrochemical Performance

“…In recent years, major progress in electrochemical performance of supercapacitors has been evinced by recent advances in various electrode materials, including metal oxides, carbon materials (e. g., carbon nanotubes, graphene, porous carbon materials, carbon paper and textile), conducting polymers (e. g., polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), polythiophene (PTh)), and diverse hybrid materials . In particular, the composites consisting of conducting polymers with the carbonaceous scaffolds as the electrode materials have shown superior capacitive characteristics due to the large pseudocapacitance contribution from the reversible oxidation‐reduction reactions of the conducting polymer and the capacitance of the ideal electrochemical double‐layer capacitance from the carbonaceous materials …”

“…[6][7] In particular, the composites consisting of conducting polymers with the carbonaceous scaffolds as the electrode materials have shown superior capacitive characteristics due to the large pseudocapacitance contribution from the reversible oxidation-reduction reactions of the conducting polymer and the capacitance of the ideal electrochemical double-layer capacitance from the carbonaceous materials. [8][9][10][11][12] As a relatively new type of electrically conducting polymers, polythiophene and its derivatives feature of relatively low cost, high unique redox states, high charge mobility, and moderate band gap [13][14] over conventional conducting polymers, such as PANI and PPy. Many efforts have been made to fabricate polythiophene/carbon hybrid electrode materials, such as PTh coated onto multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) composite, [15] poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with graphene oxide (PEDOT-GO) composite, [16] poly(3-methylthiophene) co-doped with graphene and single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNTs) forming a ternary nanocomposite, [17] PTh modified coral-like monolithic carbon, [18] and PTh derivative grown on GO nanosheets, [19] etc.…”