Issue 2, 2018

Nitrogen-doped porous carbons derived from a natural polysaccharide for multiple energy storage devices

Abstract

Designing advanced carbon electrodes is considered as one of the most promising directions for energy storage. Herein, we report a facile approach to produce porous carbon nanomaterials. The carbon nanomaterials were prepared via KOH activation using natural polysaccharide-sodium alginate as the precursor with the subsequent introduction of additional nitrogen heteroatoms achieved by further reaction with urea. The optimal electrodes with a high specific surface area (up to 3313 m2 g−1), interconnected porosity, and rich nitrogen (∼7.2 wt%) and oxygen (∼7.4 wt%) doping can achieve an excellent electrochemical performance in supercapacitors and lithium ion batteries. When these materials are employed as supercapacitor electrodes, they achieved an outstanding specific capacitance of 267 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 and an extremely high rate performance with 76.8% capacitance retention ratio in an alkaline electrolyte. In addition, a high capacitance of 197 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 with a high capacitance retention ratio of 52.9% at 100 A g−1 can be achieved in an ionic liquid electrolyte. When tested as lithium ion battery anodes, an extraordinarily high specific capacity of 1455 mA h g−1 and a stable energy storage performance up to 500 cycles were observed. The present study highlights that high-performance carbon electrodes can be produced by using sustainable precursor and can be used in multiple energy storage systems.

Graphical abstract: Nitrogen-doped porous carbons derived from a natural polysaccharide for multiple energy storage devices

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
13 Sep 2017
Accepted
08 Nov 2017
First published
09 Nov 2017

Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2018,2, 381-391

Nitrogen-doped porous carbons derived from a natural polysaccharide for multiple energy storage devices

Y. Cui, H. Wang, X. Xu, Y. Lv, J. Shi, W. Liu, S. Chen and X. Wang, Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2018, 2, 381 DOI: 10.1039/C7SE00443E

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