2D N-doped layered mesoporous carbon sheets for high-performance electrochemical hydrogen storage

Abstract

The rapid growth in energy demands and environmental concerns have drawn great attention to the development of new functional materials for sustainable energy technologies. As an emerging material, mesoporous carbon-based materials exhibit unique properties and have been considered promising candidates for electrochemical hydrogen storage applications. However, pure mesoporous carbon as electrode material may suffer from sluggish electrolyte transportation kinetic and poor hydrophilicity. Two-dimensional layered structure with high exposure area and nitrogen doping, which provides the improved accessibility of ions as well as the hydrophilicity of carbon materials, can cope with these two challenges. Here, the nitrogen-doped layered mesoporous carbon sheets, prepared by the double-hard-template route, were characterized using various technologies and investigated the electrochemically stored hydrogen energy properties. The results exhibit that hydrogen storage can be achieved around 104 mAh g−1 at 100 mA g−1, and the capacity retention was 85.4% at 2 A g−1. Moreover, it also displays superior cycling stability with a retention of 98% upon 300 cycles. According to the obtained results, the layered mesoporous carbon sheets demonstrated suitable capacity as a potential and promising active material for hydrogen-proton-related devices.