High surface area carbon from polyacrylonitrile for high-performance electrochemical capacitive energy storage

Abstract

High surface area carbon with a surface area of 3550 m² g⁻¹ is synthesized via a low-cost, scalable process from polyacrylonitrile. The composite electrodes consisting of high surface area carbon and carbon nanotubes delivered a high capacitance of ∼174 F g⁻¹ in symmetric configurations, and a high capacity of ∼150 mA h g⁻¹ in asymmetric configurations against lithium metal with excellent rate-performance at practical mass loading and bulk densities.