Journal of Materials Science, Vol.51, No.12, 5676-5684, 2016
Facile synthesis of graphitic porous carbons with three-dimensional nanonetwork for high-rate supercapacitive energy storage
Meso-/macropore structure and graphite microcrystallite are two critical impacts on high-rate supercapacitive energy storage performance of nanoporous carbon. In the present paper, we prepared a novel graphitic carbon with three-dimensional interconnected meso-/macroporous nanonetwork by a simple one-step Friedel-Crafts crosslinking reaction. A metal-containing aromatic molecule, ferrocene, is selected as started building units. The crosslinking reaction of aromatic rings leads to the formation of meso-/macroporous nanonetworks, and the Fe element can act as a catalyst to accelerate the formation of graphite microcrystallite during carbonization. The experimental results show that the crystal sizes along the c-axis direction (L (c)) of the as-obtained graphitic porous carbons are 0.92-1.49 nm and the graphitization do not damage nanopore structure, so that their surface areas are higher than 500 m(2) g(-1). Owing to their unique structural features, i.e., meso-/macroporous network can shorten the ion transport distance and accelerate ion transport rate, and the moderate graphite microcrystalline is beneficial for electron transfer, this graphitic porous carbon shows high-rate supercapacitive energy storage. For example, the capacitance retention of the as-prepared samples can reach 88 % when the scan rate was raised from 10 to 300 mV s(-1).