A facile one-pot synthesis of hierarchical porous carbon for supercapacitor electrodes

Abstract

This study presents a facile, environmentally friendly approach to fabricate hierarchical porous carbon for supercapacitor electrodes. The one-pot synthesis of PFO/silica/PTFE via co-pyrolysis generates ideal hierarchical porous carbon. Compared with traditional methods, this method eliminates toxic solvents and complex cleaning steps. PPC-2 obtained under the optimized activation time has the highest specific surface area (2657 m2 g−1) and a remarkable total pore volume (2.96 cm3 g−1). These properties result in a remarkable specific capacitance of 335.9–210.8 F g−1 at current densities of 0.5–10 A g−1 in KOH electrolyte. The electrochemical performance of the PPC-2 electrode in a symmetric supercapacitor device was measured in aqueous (6 M KOH) and ionic liquid (EMIM-TFSI) electrolytes. In EMIM-TFSI, PPC-2//PPC-2 provides an energy density of 48.5 Wh/kg even at a power density of 750 W kg−1. This facile one-pot synthesis method offers a sustainable and scalable approach to produce high-performance hierarchical porous carbon for supercapacitor applications.