Hydroquinone-modified Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres with Excellent Capacitive Performance

doi:10.15541/jim20170134

Abstract

Abstract:

Pure carbon materials store energy mainly by the electric double-layer mechanism, resulting in their low specific capacitance. However, pseudocapacitive materials can store energy through faradaic reactions, leading to drastically improved specific capacitance. Herein, mesoporous carbon nanospheres with 3D ordered pore symmetry were synthesized by soft template method. Then, the hydroquinone (HQ) was used to modify mesoporous carbon nanospheres by hydrothermal method. As demonstrated by cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge tests, HQ modified carbon nanospheres show both electric double layer capacitance and pseudocapacitance. Carbon nanospheres with 10wt% HQ loading possess the highest specific capacitance of 285 F/g at the current density of 0.5 A/g and 212 F/g at 10 A/g, exhibiting excellent rate performance. This should be ascribed to the HQ molecules adsorbed on carbonaceous mesopore surface by π-π interactions, which not only provide extra pseudocapacitance, but also improve the rate performance of carbons in aqueous electrolyte.

Key words: mesoporous carbon, hydroquinone, pseudocapacitance, supercapacitor

CLC Number:

TM53

GAO Xiu-Li, WANG Dan-Dan, LI Shuo, XING Wei, YAN Zi-Feng. Hydroquinone-modified Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres with Excellent Capacitive Performance[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2018, 33(1): 48-52.

Figures/Tables 7

Fig. 1 SEM image of MCNS

Fig. 2 TEM image of MCNS

Fig. 3 Nitrogen sorption isotherms of MCNS and pore size distributions of MCNS (inset)

Fig. 4 Cyclic voltammograms of samples at a can rate of 5 mV/s

Fig. 5 Galvanostatic charge-discharge curves of samples at a current density of 1 A/g

Fig. 6 Specific capacitances and retention ratios of samples at different current densities

Fig. 7 Nyquist plots with the enlarged view of the high-frequency region in the inset for the samples

References 19

[1]	YU Z N, TETARD L, ZHAI L, et al.Supercapacitor electrode materials: nanostructures from 0 to 3 dimensions.Energy & Environmental Science, 2015, 8(3): 702-730.
[2]	CHEN S, XING W, DUAN J J, et al.Nanostructured morphology control for efficient supercapacitor electrodes.Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2013, 1(9): 2941-2954.
[3]	GAO X L, XING W, ZHOU J, et al.Superior capacitive performance of active carbons derived from enteromorpha prolifera.Electrochimica Acta, 2014, 133: 459-466.
[4]	ZHOU J, LI Z, XING W, et al.A new approach to tuning carbon ultramicropore size at sub-angstrom level for maximizing specific capacitance and CO2 uptake.Advanced Functional Materials, 2016, 26(44): 7955-7964.
[5]	KANG G Y, CHEN Y, LI J J, et al.Comparison on structure and electrochemical performances of NiAl-LDH, CoAl-LDH and NiCoAl-LDH.Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2016, 31(11): 1230-1236.
[6]	WANG C F, LU S, CHEN H L, et al.One-pot synthesis and application in asymmetric supercapacitors of Mn3O4@RGO nanocomposites.Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2016, 31(6): 581-587.
[7]	SUN L, TIAN C G, LI M T, et al.From coconut shell to porous graphene-like nanosheets for high-power supercapacitors.Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2013, 1(21): 6462-6470.
[8]	LI X J, XING W, ZHOU J, et al.Excellent capacitive performance of a three-dimensional hierarchical porous graphene/carbon composite with a super high surface area.Chemistry-A European Journal, 2014, 20(41): 13314-13320.
[9]	TANG H, WANG J, YIN H, et al.Growth of polypyrrole ultrathin films on MoS2 monolayers as high-performance supercapacitor electrodes.Advanced Materials, 2015, 27(6): 1117-1123.
[10]	GAO P, METZ P, HEY T, et al.The critical role of point defects in improving the specific capacitance of delta-MnO2 nanosheets.Nature Communications, 2017, 8: 14559.
[11]	MENG W, CHEN W, ZHAO L, et al.Porous Fe3O4/carbon composite electrode material prepared from metal-organic framework template and effect of temperature on its capacitance.Nano Energy, 2014, 8: 133-140.
[12]	YANG J, DUAN X, GUO W, et al.Electrochemical performances investigation of NiS/RGO composite as electrode material for supercapacitors.Nano Energy, 2014, 5: 74-81.
[13]	WU J, ZHANG Q, ZHOU A, et al.Phase-separated polyaniline/graphene composite electrodes for high-rate electrochemical supercapacitors.Advanced Materials, 2016, 28(46): 10211-10216.
[14]	LI L, PENG S, CHEN H, et al.Polypyrrole-coated hierarchical porous composites nanoarchitectures for advanced solid-state flexible hybrid devices.Nano Energy, 2016, 19: 307-317.
[15]	COMTE A L, BROUSSE T, BÉLANGER D, et al.. Simpler and greener grafting method for improving the stability of anthraquinone-modified carbon electrode in alkaline media.Electrochimica Acta, 2014, 137: 447-453.
[16]	FRACKOWIAK E, MELLER M, MENZEL J, et al.Redox-active electrolyte for supercapacitor application.Faraday Discussions, 2014, 172: 179-198.
[17]	LI M, DING J, XUE J M.Mesoporous carbon decorated graphene as an efficient electrode material for supercapacitors.Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2013, 1(25): 7469-7476.
[18]	XU Y X, LIN Z Y, HUANG X Q, et al.Functionalized graphene hydrogel-based high-performance supercapacitors.Advanced Materials, 2013, 25(40): 5779-5784.
[19]	ZHOU J, XING W, ZHUO S, et al.Capacitive performance of ordered mesoporous carbons with tunable porous texture in ionic liquid electrolytes.Solid State Sciences, 2011, 13(11): 2000-2006.