Boosting Specific Energy and Power of Carbon-Ionic Liquid Supercapacitors by Engineering Carbon Pore Structures

Dong Zhang; Hongquan Gao; Guomin Hua; Haitao Zhou; Jianchun Wu; Bowei Zhu; Chao Liu; Jianhong Yang; De Chen; De Chen

doi:10.3389/fchem.2020.00006

Frontiers in Chemistry (Feb 2020)

Boosting Specific Energy and Power of Carbon-Ionic Liquid Supercapacitors by Engineering Carbon Pore Structures

Dong Zhang,
Hongquan Gao,
Guomin Hua,
Haitao Zhou,
Jianchun Wu,
Bowei Zhu,
Chao Liu,
Jianhong Yang,
De Chen,
De Chen

Affiliations

Dong Zhang: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Hongquan Gao: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Guomin Hua: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Haitao Zhou: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Jianchun Wu: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Bowei Zhu: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Chao Liu: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Jianhong Yang: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
De Chen: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
De Chen: Department of Chemical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2020.00006
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 8

Abstract

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Carbon-ionic liquid (C-IL) supercapacitors (SCs) promise to provide high capacitance and high operating voltage, and thus high specific energy. It is still highly demanding to enhance the capacitance in order to achieve high power and energy density. We synthesized a high-pore-volume and specific-surface-area activated carbon material with a slit mesoporous structure by two-step processes of carbonization and the activation from polypyrrole. The novel slit-pore-structured carbon materials provide a specific capacity of 310 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 for C-IL SCs, which is among one of the highest recorded specific capacitances. The slit mesoporous activated carbons have a maximum ion volume utilization of 74%, which effectively enhances ion storage, and a better interaction with ions in ionic liquid electrolyte, thus providing superior capacitance. We believe that this work provides a new strategy of engineering pore structure to enhance specific capacitance and rate performance of C-IL SCs.

Published in Frontiers in Chemistry

ISSN: 2296-2646 (Online)
Publisher: Frontiers Media S.A.
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Science: Chemistry
Website: http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/chemistry

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