Abstract
N-doped porous carbon (N-PC) is considered as a promising candidate for electrochemical energy storage. However, the complicated multistep process is the biggest bottleneck. Here, a facile one-step strategy was employed to fabricate the N-doped porous carbon via the co-pyrolysis of urea and poly(acrylic acid-co-maleic acid) sodium salt (PAMS) without the protection of inert gas at 550 °C. When the mass ratio of urea to PAMS is 4:1, the microstructure and electrochemical properties of the as-prepared sample (N-4PC) are obviously improved compared with that of the direct carbonization of PAMS (PC). N-4PC presents salient peculiarities with much more mesopores, higher specific surface area of 181.5 m2 g−1 far more than PC (23.6 m2 g−1), and its nitrogen content is up to 10.61 at. %. In a three-electrode configuration using 6 M KOH, owing to the synergistic effect of pyridinic N, pyrrolic N and graphitic N atoms, N-4PC shows an outstanding specific capacity of 210 F g−1 far more than that of PC (93 F g−1) at 1 A g−1, and a significant capacity retention rate of 79 % much higher than PC (47 %) at 20 A g−1. Furthermore, the symmetric supercapacitor fabricated by N-4PC delivers an attractive specific capacitance of 140 F g−1 at 1 A g −1, and 4.9 Wh kg−1 energy density when the power density is 265 W kg−1 in 6 M KOH. The equipment achieves superior cycle stability with capacity retention of 97 % after 7000 cycles at 1 A g−1. Additionally, N-4PC also achieves great energy densities of 6.7 Wh kg−1 at the power density of 372.3 W kg−1 in 1 M H2SO4 and 12.5 Wh kg−1 at the power density of 521.5 W kg−1 in 1 M Li2SO4. The fabricated nitrogen-doped porous carbon material has a great potential application prospect in energy storage equipment.
Published Version
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