Abstract
Coal-based 3D hierarchical porous carbon aerogels (3D HPCAs) has been successfully fabricated from a freeze-drying method and with subsequent of calcination process, using coal oxide as carbon precursors, and PVA as both cross-linking agent and sacrifice template. The 3D HPCAs, using as electrode materials for supercapacitors, display outstanding electrochemical performance. The optimal sample (HPCAs-0.4-800) presents a high specific capacitance of 260 F g−1 at 1 A g−1, and exhibits considerable rate capability with the retention of 81% at 10 A g−1. Notably, HPCAs-0.4-800 shows an excellent cycling stability with 105% of the capacitance retention after 50000 cycles at 10 A g−1, attributing to its unique hierarchical porosity, high surface area up to 1303 m2 g−1, and improved conductivity. This work offers a promising route to synthesize coal-based porous carbon aerogels electrode materials for supercapacitors.
Highlights
Coal-based 3D hierarchical porous carbon aerogels (3D HPCAs) has been successfully fabricated from a freeze-drying method and with subsequent of calcination process, using coal oxide as carbon precursors, and Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as both cross-linking agent and sacrifice template
We developed an efficient method to construct coal-based 3D HPCAs by carbonization of freezing-dried PVA/coal-based hydrogels, in which coal oxide serves as the carbon source and PVA serves as the sacrificial template and cross-linking agent, respectively
PVA/coal-based hydrogels were prepared by using PVA as a crosslinking agent of coal oxide fragment, and the 3D network porous structures were formed through a freeze-drying and with subsequent of calcination
Summary
Coal-based 3D hierarchical porous carbon aerogels (3D HPCAs) has been successfully fabricated from a freeze-drying method and with subsequent of calcination process, using coal oxide as carbon precursors, and PVA as both cross-linking agent and sacrifice template. It is very crucial for supercapacitors with high performance to prepare electrode materials with proper architecture structure, suitable pore size distribution and high specific surface area (SSA)[8]. The results demonstrate that coal oxide is the primary carbon source in the 3D HPCAs, while PVA is the cross-linking agent for formation of hydrogels and the sacrifice template to fabricate 3D network porous structures.
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