An Assembly and Interfacial Templating Route to Carbon Supercapacitors with Simultaneously Tailored Meso- and...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Electrochemistry

Background:

• Developing porous carbon materials with controlled pore hierarchy and microstructures is crucial for efficient multiscale transport.
• Existing methods like nanocasting often involve sequential steps and limitations in microstructure control.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a facile strategy for simultaneously tailoring pore hierarchy and microstructures in carbonaceous materials.
• To explore a novel template-replica coassembly approach using glucose and silica nanoparticle templates.
• To investigate the application of these materials in electrochemical double-layer capacitors.

Main Methods:

• Synthesized three-dimensionally ordered hierarchically porous carbon powders via coassembly of glucose with sacrificial silica nanoparticle templates.
• Utilized interfacial templating to achieve tunable mesopore volumes and control sp2 hybridized carbon content.
• Applied the synthesized carbons as electrode materials in electrochemical double-layer capacitors.

Main Results:

• Achieved tunable mesopore volumes up to 5.8 cm³/g.
• Demonstrated control over sp2 hybridized carbon content at the template-replica interface under mild conditions.
• Supercapacitors exhibited a specific capacitance of 275 F/g in H2SO4 electrolyte with 90% retention at 10 A/g.

Conclusions:

• The template-replica coassembly offers an efficient alternative to conventional nanocasting for hierarchical structuring.
• Simultaneously tailored pore hierarchy and microstructures significantly benefit ion and charge transport.
• The developed porous carbons show great potential for high-performance energy storage applications.