Nitrogen‐ and Oxygen‐Enriched Carbon With Square Tubular Structure Prepared From Polyaniline as Electrode for Supercapacitors

Abstract

AbstractSquare tubular carbon with a large number of surface functional groups are prepared by carbonizing and activating polyaniline, which are synthesized by polymerization of aniline with a template‐free self‐assembly method in aqueous media. The physicochemical properties of the square tubular carbon is characterized by scanning and transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area measurements, Raman spectroscopy, and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. When used as an electrode, the square tubular carbon exhibit a specific capacitance of 223 F g–1 at a scan rate of 2 mV s–1, which could still stay over 90% when the scan rate increased by 10 times. The specific capacitance even hardly decrease at a current density of 3 A g–1 after 10,000 cycles, which indicates that the square tubular carbon have good cycle durability and may be a promising candidate as an electrode for supercapacitors.