A Facile Route to Synthesis of Hierarchically Porous Carbon via Micelle System for Bifunctional Electrochemical Application.

Xiaojian Hou,Qian Wang,Wenxiu Li,Yueju Zhao,Wei Li,Yi Song,Ruiwen Sun,Yanan Ma,Shaoru Tang,Zanwu Guo

doi:10.3389/fchem.2021.762103

Abstract

Well-ordered hierarchically porous carbon (HPC) nanomaterials have been successfully synthesized by a facile, efficient, and fast heated-evaporation induced self-assembly (HISA) method. A micelle system was employed as the template by using the HISA method for the first time, which possessed great potential in the large-scale production of HPC materials. Various surfactants, including triblock copolymer Pluronic F127, P123, F108, and cationic CTAB, were used in the polymerization process as templates to reveal the relationship between the structure of surfactants and architecture of the as-prepared HPCs. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Nitrogen adsorption, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements were conducted to investigate the morphology, structure, and components of HPCs, which further confirmed the well-ordered and uniform mesoporous structure. The as-prepared HPC sample with F127 possessed the largest specific surface area, suitable pore size, and well-ordered mesoporous structure, resulting in better electrochemical performance as electrodes in the fields of energy storage and conversion system. Doped with the metallic oxide MnO2, the MnO2/HPC composites presented the outstanding electrochemical activity in supercapacitor with a high specific capacitance of 531.2 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 and excellent cycling performance with little capacity fading, even after 5,000 cycles. Moreover, the obtained sample could also be applied in the fields of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) for its abundant active sites and regulate architecture. This versatile approach makes the mass industrial production of HPC materials possible in electrochemical applications through a facile and fast route.

Highlights

Exploration of renewable clean energy has continued to increase in recent years as a way of addressing the energy crisis and emerging serious problems of environmental pollution (Ge et al, 2015; Shao et al, 2016)
The porous carbon samples were obtained after pyrolysis treatment in the N2 atmosphere for removing the surfactant and carbonizing resol
The results suggest that the nanostructure of the synthesized sample with the evaporation-induced selfassembly (EISA) method in Supplementary Figure S3a1, a2 are regular, and the sample prepared with the HT method in Supplementary Figure S3 b1, b2 presents an unordered worm-like mesostructure

Summary

Introduction

Exploration of renewable clean energy has continued to increase in recent years as a way of addressing the energy crisis and emerging serious problems of environmental pollution (Ge et al, 2015; Shao et al, 2016). In the present study we employed the micelle solution as the reaction system to synthesize the well-ordered HPCs with the HISA method.

Results

Conclusion