Three-dimensional tellurium and nitrogen Co-doped mesoporous carbons for high performance supercapacitors

Abstract

Tellurium-doped mesoporous carbon composite materials (Te/NMC) have been prepared by a facile intercalation method in the presence of nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon (NMC) with tellurium powder, for the first time. The effects of the co-doped N and Te in the mesoporous carbon matrix on the physical/chemical properties and capacitance performances were investigated via the use of various characterization methods and electrochemical studies. The as-prepared NMC and Te/NMC materials were found to mainly be composed of mesopores and maintained the 3D hierarchical graphite-like structure with lots of defect sites. By intercalation of Te atoms into the NMC materials, 2.12 at% (atom%) of Te was doped into NMC and the specific surface area of Te/NMC (261.07 m² g⁻¹) decreased by about 1.5 times compared to that of NMC (437.96 m² g⁻¹). In electrochemical measurements as a supercapacitor (SC) electrode, the Te/NMC based electrode, even with its lower porosity parameters, exhibited a higher capacitive performance compared to the NMC-based electrode. These results for Te/NMC arise due to the pseudo-capacitive effect of doped Te and the increase in the capacitive area available from the formation of interconnections in the mesoporous carbons through Te–O bonds. As a result, the synergetic effect of the Te and N atoms enables Te/NMC to exhibit the highest specific capacitance of 197 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 0.5 A g⁻¹. Moreover, remarkable long-term cycling stability with the retention of more than 95% of the initial capacitance is observed for Te/NMC at a current density of 5 A g⁻¹ and also for 1000 charge–discharge cycles.