Porous Graphene‐Like Materials Prepared from Hollow Carbonaceous Microspheres for Supercapacitors

Abstract

AbstractCatalytic activation of carbonaceous materials has recently been employed as an effective way to prepare porous graphene‐like (PG) materials with large specific surface area and excellent electrical conductivity for supercapacitor applications. In this work, the influence of the morphologies and structures of the carbonaceous precursors on the structure and electrochemical properties of PG products has been investigated. By using hollow carbonaceous microspheres with thin walls as the precursors, PG with large specific surface area, abundant porous structure, and high graphitization degree is obtained, which exhibits high specific capacitance and excellent cycling stability. In contrast, if solid carbonaceous microspheres are applied as the precursors, the resultant PG possesses relatively lower specific surface area and lower graphitization degree, giving rise to worse electrochemical performance than the former one. The more homogeneous dispersion of iron catalyst in the nano‐sized walls of hollow spheres than that in solid spheres is considered to be the main reason that induces larger specific surface area and higher electrical conductivity, and thus better supercapacitive performance of the PG product.