Fabrication of novel powdery carbon aerogels with high surface areas for superior energy storage

Abstract

Carbon aerogels and their precursory polymer aerogels are an important class of porous materials, because they have a unique three-dimensional interconnected nanonetwork structure that can minimize diffusive resistance to mass transport. However, production of conventional aerogels in a monolithic form remains problematic, because of risk of explosive polymerization, tedious supercritical/freeze drying steps, extra ball milling, and difficulty in controlling micro/nanostructures. Here we show that novel powdery carbon aerogels and their polymer aerogel precursors have been developed by utilizing shape-persistent nanoparticles as building blocks, followed by hypercrosslinking for forming a well-defined 3D interconnected nanonetwork with numerous interstitial nanopores and intraparticle micropores. The resulting aerogels are in a microscale powdery form. The preparation route is much more feasible for scaling up, due to avoidance of explosive polymerization and facile drying at ambient pressure. By simple carbonization, powdery carbon aerogels can be obtained with a high surface area of 2052m2g−1. Benefiting from structural advantages, the aerogels demonstrate excellent electrochemical performances in supercapacitors and lithium-sulfur batteries.