Nitrogen-doped porous carbon monoliths from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and carbon nanotubes as electrodes for supercapacitors

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 40259
• Main Authors: Wang, Yanqing, Fugetsu, Bunshi, Wang, Zhipeng, Gong, Wei, Sakata, Ichiro, Morimoto, Shingo, Hashimoto, Yoshio, Endo, Morinobu, Dresselhaus, Mildred, Terrones, Mauricio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11.01.2017; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301/299/1013; 639/638/161; Activated carbon; Capacitance; Carbon; Electrodes; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Nanotechnology; Nanotubes; Nitrogen; Polyacrylonitrile; Science; Temperature effects
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep40259

Nitrogen-doped porous activated carbon monoliths (NDP-ACMs) have long been the most desirable materials for supercapacitors. Unique to the conventional template based Lewis acid/base activation methods, herein, we report on a simple yet practicable novel approach to production of the three-dimensional NDP-ACMs (3D-NDP-ACMs). Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) contained carbon nanotubes (CNTs), being pre-dispersed into a tubular level of dispersions, were used as the starting material and the 3D-NDP-ACMs were obtained via a template-free process. First, a continuous mesoporous PAN/CNT based 3D monolith was established by using a template-free temperature-induced phase separation (TTPS). Second, a nitrogen-doped 3D-ACM with a surface area of 613.8 m 2 /g and a pore volume 0.366 cm 3 /g was obtained. A typical supercapacitor with our 3D-NDP-ACMs as the functioning electrodes gave a specific capacitance stabilized at 216 F/g even after 3000 cycles, demonstrating the advantageous performance of the PAN/CNT based 3D-NDP-ACMs.