Porous carbons derived from pyrene-based conjugated microporous polymer for supercapacitors

Abstract

Porous carbons with high surface area were obtained by pyrolysis of a pyrene-based conjugated microporous polymer with potassium hydroxide active agent. Nitrogen adsorption and desorption measurements demonstrated that the surface area, pore volume, pore size and pore size distributions of the resulting carbon materials are significantly dependent on the activation temperature. The performances of the supercapacitors fabricated from these carbon materials were investigated by cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge-discharge, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, electrochemical capacitance and long cyclic stability. The results revealed that SDBPy-800-based electrode shows the highest specific capacitance of 301 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1 in a three-electrode system among the three carbonized materials. A symmetric supercapacitor was further fabricated from SDBPy-800 in a two-electrode system, which also exhibits a high specific capacitance of 176 F g−1 at a current density of 0.25 A g−1, high rate capability and excellent cycling stability with the capacitance retention of 92.6% after 10,000 cycles. These results demonstrated that these porous carbon materials are promising for high-performance supercapacitors.