Synthesis of hierarchically porous boron-doped carbon material with enhanced surface hydrophobicity and porosity for improved supercapacitor performance

Abstract

Heteroatoms doped nano-porous carbon materials possess well-designed porosity and also exhibit extremely advantages over high-performance electrodes for supercapacitors (SCs). Herein, we fabricate hierarchically porous boron-doped carbon material (B-HPC) with high specific surface area by a facile synthesis strategy using boric acid as B doping agent, NaCl as retrievable template and ZnCl2 as activation agent. The B doping significantly enhance surface hydrophilicity/wettability and improve capacitance thereby via efficient electrolyte ion penetration and interactions with the surface of carbon electrode. As a result, B-HPC exhibits high specific capacitance (379.9 F/g at 1 A/g) and excellent cycling performance (96.3% capacitance retention over 10 000 cycles). Furthermore, the symmetric SC based on B-HPC can reach up to a high voltage window (1.8 V) and achieve excellent energy density of 25.9 Wh/kg at 447.2 W/kg using 1 M Na2SO4 as electrolyte. B-HPC electrode is demonstrated to possess excellent capacitive behaviors and supposed as a promising material for application in SCs and other energy storage systems.