Porous graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets with three-dimensional interconnected network as electrode for supercapacitors

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride material with hierarchical porous structure and high doping level has been reported to exhibit superior capacitive properties due to the facilitated electrolyte migration and redox process. In this work, porous graphitic carbon nitride layers (UMCN-A1.25) with typical three-dimensional (3D) network were prepared through a facile calcination process. For its preparation, NH4HCO3 was used as the pore generator and glucose was used as the carbon precursor. Urea and melamine, which worked as the binary precursors for sacrificial template, played important roles in the formation of the final 3D interconnected structure. The hierarchical pore structure and high nitrogen-doping level endow UMCN-A1.25 with high specific capacitances (520 F g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 and 219.4 F g−1 at 20 A g−1) and stable charge-discharge behavior with no capacitance declination after 10,000 cyclic tests. This work proposed an efficient route for the construction of inter-connected carbon nitride layers, and also revealed the importance of both lamellar morphology and interwoven structure for the acquisition of high capacitive properties.