Size-controllable synthesis of monodispersed nitrogen-doped carbon nanospheres from polydopamine for high-rate supercapacitors

• Published in: Frontiers of chemical science and engineering Vol. 17; no. 11; pp. 1788 - 1800
• Main Authors: Zhang, Ning, Gao, Fu-Cheng, Liu, Hong, Wang, Feng-Yun, Zhang, Ru-Liang, Yu, Qing, Liu, Lei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Higher Education Press 01.11.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Ammonia; Carbon; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Controllability; Dopamine; Electrode materials; Energy storage; Functional groups; Hexamethylenetetramine; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Nanospheres; Nanotechnology; Nitrogen; Particle size; Polymerization; Research Article; Supercapacitors; carbon nanospheres; high-rate; size-controlled; nitrogen-doped; supercapacitors
• ISSN: 2095-0179; 2095-0187
• DOI: 10.1007/s11705-023-2326-8

Monodispersed nitrogen-doped carbon nanospheres with tunable particle size (100–230 nm) were synthesized via self-polymerization of biochemical dopamine in the presence of hexamethylenetetramine as a buffer and F127 as a size controlling agent. Hexamethylenetetramine can mildly release NH 3 , which in turn initiates the polymerization reaction of dopamine. The carbon nanospheres obtained exhibited a significant energy storage capability of 265 F·g −1 at 0.5 A·g −1 and high-rate performance of 82% in 6 mol·L −1 KOH (20 A·g −1 ), which could be attributed to the presence of abundant micro-mesoporous structure, doped nitrogen functional groups and the small particle size. Moreover, the fabricated symmetric supercapacitor device displayed a high stability of 94% after 5000 cycles, revealing the considerable potential of carbon nanospheres as electrode materials for energy storage.