Ultra-facile fabrication of phosphorus doped egg-like hierarchic porous carbon with superior supercapacitance performance by microwave irradiation combining with self-activation strategy

Abstract

Herein, we report an ultra-facile fabrication method for a phosphorus doped egg-like hierarchic porous carbon by microwave irradiation combining with self-activation strategy under air atmosphere. Comparing with the traditional pyrolytic carbonization method, the reported method exhibits incomparable merits, such as high energy efficiency, ultra-fast and inert atmosphere protection absent fabrication process. Similar morphology and graphitization degree with the sample fabricated by the traditional pyrolytic carbonization method under inert atmosphere protection for 2 h can be easily achieved by the reported microwave irradiation method just for 3 min under ambient atmosphere. The samples fabricated by the reported method display a unique phosphorus doped egg-like hierarchic porous structure, high specific surface area (1642 m2 g−1) and large pore volume (2.04 cm3 g−1). Specific capacitance of the samples fabricated by the reported method reaches up to 209 F g−1, and over 96.2% of initial capacitance remains as current density increasing from 0.5 to 20 A g−1, indicating the superior capacitance performance of the fabricated samples. The hierarchic porous structure, opened microporosity, additional pseudocapacitance, high electrolyte-accessible surface area and good conductivity make essential contribution to its superior capacitance performance.