Abstract
Cycling stability and specific capacitance are the most critical features of energy sources. Nitrogen incorporation in crystalline carbon lattice allows to increase the capacitance without increasing the mass of electrodes. Despite the fact that many studies demonstrate the increase in the capacitance of energy sources after nitrogen incorporation, the mechanism capacitance increase is still unclear. Herein, we demonstrate the simple approach of plasma treatment of carbon structures, which leads to incorporation of 3 at.% nitrogen into Carbon NanoWalls. These structures have huge specific surface area and can be used for supercapacitor fabrication. After plasma treatment, the specific capacitance of Carbon NanoWalls increased and reached 600 F g−1. Moreover, we made a novel DFT simulation which explains the mechanism of nitrogen incorporation into the carbon lattice. This work paves the way to develop flexible thin film supercapacitors based on carbon nanowalls.
Highlights
Carbon NanoWalls (CNWs) were discovered several decades ago and they show a certain potential for fabrication of various-purpose devices
To reveal the chemical state of carbon and nitrogen atoms, as-deposited CNWs, CNWs treated by the N2 plasma, and NCNWs after electrochemical cycling were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) (Fig. 2)
XPS was preferred to CHNS in order to gain insight into atomic bonds and atomic content, and the penetration depth of XPS was sufficient for 2 μm thin films
Summary
Carbon NanoWalls (CNWs) were discovered several decades ago and they show a certain potential for fabrication of various-purpose devices. Various nitrogen incorporation processes during the synthesis of graphene were demonstrated to have a positive effect on its specific capacitance due to an appearance of additional redox reactions[14] One of these post-modification techniques, plasma treatment, was demonstrated to be able to produce a modified graphene with a specific capacitance of 855 F g−1 15,16. Due to the fact that carbon materials possess chemically and structurally tunable properties, various methods of modification during the material synthesis stage have been proposed. These techniques include chemical vapor deposition and chemical tuning[17,18]. X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) were recorded on an Axis Ultra DLD spectrometer (Kratos) using monochromatic Al Kα radiation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
