Facile Synthesis of Nitrogen-Containing Mesoporous Carbon for High-Performance Energy Storage Applications

Porous carbon with high specific surface area (SSA), a reasonable pore size distribution, and modified surface chemistry is highly desirable for application in energy storage devices. Herein, we report the synthesis of nitrogen-containing mesoporous carbon with high SSA (1390 m(2) g(-1)), a suitable pore size distribution (1.5-8.1 nm), and a nitrogen content of 4.7 wt % through a facile one-step self-assembly process. Owing to its unique physical characteristics and nitrogen doping, this material demonstrates great promise for application in both supercapacitors and encapsulating sulfur as a superior cathode material for lithium-sulfur batteries. When deployed as a supercapacitor electrode, it exhibited a high specific capacitance of 238.4 F g(-1) at 1 A g(-1) and an excellent rate capability (180 F g(-1), 10 A g(-1)). Furthermore, when an NMC/S electrode was evaluated as the cathode material for lithium-sulfur batteries, it showed a high initial discharge capacity of 1143.6 mA h g(-1) at 837.5 mA g(-1) and an extraordinary cycling stability with 70.3% capacity retention after 100 cycles.