One pot facile synthesis of carbonaceous gel via thiol-epoxy click reaction as potential electrode material for supercapacitor

Abstract

Carbonaceous gels, as afresh materials are gaining considerable attention in recent era because of their multifunctional characteristics. Benefiting from these characteristics, a facile and template free in-situ pathway is developed for the fabrication of carbonaceous gel as a source of porous carbon material for potential supercapacitor applications. The as prepared carbonaceous gel was then chemically activated by KOH, which introduces compact porous structure to the gel as revealed by scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analysis. The activated gel is then converted into activated microporous carbon (AMC) via simple pyrolysis at 800 °C under inert atmosphere. The obtained AMC shows excellent performance as an electrode material for supercapacitors. The AMC electrode exhibited high specific capacitance value of 310 F g−1 at a current density of 0.2 A g−1 in 6 M KOH as an electrolyte solution using potential window from -1 to 0 V. Furthermore, the AMC possesses excellent cycle stability up to 99.4% of the retention of capacitance for almost 10,000 charging and discharging cycles. These outcomes consolidated that inexpensive carbonaceous gels are potential candidate to fabricate electrode for various energy storage devices.