Self-templating synthesis of nitrogen-rich porous carbons using pyridyl functionalized conjugated microporous polytriphenylamine for electrochemical energy storage

Abstract

Porous carbon materials are important in electrochemical applications due to their unique nanostructures and remarkable physicochemical stability. In this work, nitrogen-doped porous carbons were fabricated using the self-templating networks of pyridyl conjugated microporous polytriphenylamine. The prepared nitrogen-doped porous carbons show a high content of nitrogen (4.6–11.5 wt%) with fine performance of CO2 capture (store 14.0–17.0 wt% at 273 K and 1 bar) and high specific surface area up to 1059 m2 g−1 that surpasses materials prepared using other polymer networks. More importantly, the nitrogen-doped porous carbons exhibit great potentialities as electrode materials of supercapacitors with a specific capacitance of up to 238 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 that retained almost 100% after 1000 cycles (three-electrode supercapacitors). The prepared nitrogen-doped porous carbons underwent electrochemical activation during cycling measurement, which exhibits a high energy density (27.7 Wh kg−1) and power density (7000 W kg−1) in symmetric two-electrodes supercapacitors assembled using nitrogen-doped porous carbons after 10,000 cycles.