Sulfur-doped carbon nanotubes with hierarchical micro/mesopores for high performance pseudocapacitive supercapacitors

Increasing the specific surface area and the amount of doping heteroatoms is an effective means to improve the electrochemical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The usual activation method makes it difficult for the retention of the heteroatoms while enlarging the specific surface area, and it can be found from literatures that specific surface area and S-content of carbon-based electrode materials are mutually exclusive. Here, CNTs with high specific surface area and sulfur content are constructed by simple activation of sulfonated polymer nanotubes with KHCO₃, and the excellent electrochemical performance can be explained by the following points: first, KHCO₃can be decomposed into K₂CO₃, CO₂and H₂O during the activation process. The synergistic action of physical activation (CO₂and H₂O) and chemical activation (K₂CO₃) equips the electrode material with high specific surface area of 1840 m²g^-1and hierarchical micro/mesopores, which is beneficial to its double-layer capacitance. Second, compared with reported porous CNTs prepared by chemical activation (KOH) or physical activation (CO₂or H₂O), the mild activator KHCO₃makes the sulfur content at a high level of 4.6 at%, which is very advantageous for high pseudocapacitance performance.