Abstract
We have investigated the textural properties, electrochemical supercapacitances and vapor sensing performances of bamboo-derived nanoporous carbon materials (NCM). Bamboo, an abundant natural biomaterial, was chemically activated with phosphoric acid at 400 °C and the effect of impregnation ratio of phosphoric acid on the textural properties and electrochemical performances was systematically investigated. Fourier transform-infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy confirmed the presence of various oxygen-containing surface functional groups (i.e. carboxyl, carboxylate, carbonyl and phenolic groups) in NCM. The prepared NCM are amorphous in nature and contain hierarchical micropores and mesopores. Surface areas and pore volumes were found in the range 218–1431 m2 g−1 and 0.26–1.26 cm3 g−1, respectively, and could be controlled by adjusting the impregnation ratio of phosphoric acid and bamboo cane powder. NCM exhibited electrical double-layer supercapacitor behavior giving a high specific capacitance of c.256 F g−1 at a scan rate of 5 mV s−1 together with high cyclic stability with capacitance retention of about 92.6% after 1000 cycles. Furthermore, NCM exhibited excellent vapor sensing performance with high sensitivity for non-aromatic chemicals such as acetic acid. The system would be useful to discriminate C1 and C2 alcohol (methanol and ethanol).
Highlights
Nanocarbons made from fullerenes,[1,2,3] carbon nanotubes,[4,5] graphenes,[6,7] and other advanced nanomaterials [8,9,10] have received much attention in various fields of application
From scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations, it appears that mesoporosity seems to increase with increases in the impregnation ratio of phosphoric acid from 0.1 to 1 and remains almost unchanged (Figure S1 in Supporting Information) revealing that higher acid concentrations creates more pores
The highly porous net like surface structure can be observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (Figure 1(c))
Summary
Nanocarbons made from fullerenes,[1,2,3] carbon nanotubes,[4,5] graphenes,[6,7] and other advanced nanomaterials [8,9,10] have received much attention in various fields of application. A precursor material is heated at high temperatures (800–1100 °C) in steam, carbon dioxide, nitrogen or air. This method generally suffers from low yield and Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
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