Double Templating Synthesis and Electrochemical Properties of Carbon Foams

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrated the synthesis and electrochemical properties of carbon foams for use as supercapacitor electrode materials. Carbon foams were prepared by double templating method in which emulsion and nanosilica were used as soft template and hard template, respectively. By using Span 80 and Tween 80 as emulsifiers, resorcinol/formaldehyde aqueous solution which contained nanosilica as aqueous phase and 1iquid paraffin as oil phase, an O/W emulsion was obtained. Carbon foams were obtained by emulsion polymerization, carbonization and the subsequent removal of the hard template. The as-prepared carbon foams were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analyzer, and electrochemical workstation. The results indicate that the resultant carbon foams have specific surface area of 160 m2/g, total pore volume of 0.15 cm3/g and possess dual pore size distributions with macropore sizes of 0.5-2.0 μm and the most probable pore size of 4.1 nm. The electrochemical properties of the carbon foams have been investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge- discharge with a three-electrode system in electrolyte of 6 mol/L KOH solution. The CV curves of the carbon foams show rectangular-like shape without obvious oxidation-reduction evolution peak, which suggests a typical nonfaradic adsorption/desorption reaction. The carbon foams present linear galvanostatic charge-discharge curve under the current densities of 1.0-5.0 A/g and their specific capacitance values are 60-90 F/g. The good electrochemical performances of carbon foams would provide candidate as electrode materials for supercapacitors.