High-temperature deoxygenation-created highly porous graphitic carbon nanosheets for ultrahigh-rate supercapacitive energy storage

Abstract

Developing carbon-based supercapacitors with high rate capability is of great importance to meet the emerging demands for devices that requires high energy density as well as high power density. However, it is hard to fabricate a nanocarbon with high electro-active surface area meanwhile maintaining superior conductivity to ensure the high rate capability since excellent conductivity is usually realized by high temperature graphitization, which would lead to the structural collapse and sintering resulting in low surface area. Herein, we reported a highly porous graphitic carbon nanosheet with an unprecedented rate capability of 98% of its initial capacitance from 0.5 to 50 A/g for ultrahigh-rate supercapacitive energy storage. These hierarchical mesoporous carbon nanosheets (HMCN) were fabricated by a template induced catalytic graphitization approach, in which sheet-like Mg(OH)2 was employed as catalytic template in situ catalytically polymerizing of catechol and formaldehyde and catalytically graphitizing of the formed carbon skeleton. Upon the co-effect of template (avoiding the sintering) and the deoxygenation (creating the pores) during the high temperature graphitization process, the obtained HMCN material possesses nanosheet morphology with highly porous graphitic microstructure rich in mesoporosity, large in surface area (2316 m2/g), large in pore volume (3.58 cm3/g) and excellent in conductivity (109.8 S/cm). In 1.0 M TEABF4/AN, HMCN exhibits superior supercapacitive performance including large energy density of 52.2 Wh/kg at high power density of 118 kW/kg, long-cycling stability and excellent rate capability, making HMCN a promising electrode material for supercapacitor devices.