Gelatin-derived honeycomb like porous carbon for high mass loading supercapacitors

Abstract

Using gelatin as the carbon source and glutaraldehyde as the cross linking agent, a novel honeycomb like porous carbon has been successfully prepared through simple cross linking reaction and KOH activation at high temperature. Compact and uniform honeycomb morphology has been formed in Gel/G-1.0 (Gel represents gelatin, G represents glutaraldehyde, and 1.0 represents the amount of glutaraldehyde) which brings micropores and high specific surface area (SSA). Heteroatoms including O and N have been introduced into carbon material which contribute pseudo-capacitance. Higher degree of graphitization for Gel/G-1.0 has improved the conductivity of the carbon material which exhibits good electrochemical performances under high mass loading. When the active carbon material mass loading is about 10 mg, the specific capacitance (Csp) of Gel/G-1.0 is 392 F g−1 at current density of 1 A g−1 in 2 M H2SO4, with high retention of 64% at current density of 10 A g−1. More importantly, the carbon material exhibits a high energy density of 6.39 W h kg−1 with the power density of 50.03 W kg−1, even at the power density of 502.79 W kg−1, the energy density remains 5.00 W h kg−1. This simple synthesis strategy and outstanding electrochemical performances of carbon materials with high mass loading are great significance in the application of supercapacitors.