Coal-based 3D hierarchical porous carbon aerogels for high performance and super-long life supercapacitors

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 7022
• Main Authors: Lv, Yan, Ding, Lili, Wu, Xueyan, Guo, Nannan, Guo, Jixi, Hou, Shengchao, Tong, Fenglian, Jia, Dianzeng, Zhang, Hongbo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 27.04.2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301; 639/4077; 639/638; Capacitance; Carbon; Coal; Electrodes; Freeze drying; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Porosity; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-64020-5

Coal-based 3D hierarchical porous carbon aerogels (3D HPCAs) has been successfully fabricated from a freeze-drying method and with subsequent of calcination process, using coal oxide as carbon precursors, and PVA as both cross-linking agent and sacrifice template. The 3D HPCAs, using as electrode materials for supercapacitors, display outstanding electrochemical performance. The optimal sample (HPCAs-0.4-800) presents a high specific capacitance of 260 F g −1 at 1 A g −1 , and exhibits considerable rate capability with the retention of 81% at 10 A g −1 . Notably, HPCAs-0.4-800 shows an excellent cycling stability with 105% of the capacitance retention after 50000 cycles at 10 A g −1 , attributing to its unique hierarchical porosity, high surface area up to 1303 m 2 g −1 , and improved conductivity. This work offers a promising route to synthesize coal-based porous carbon aerogels electrode materials for supercapacitors.