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Activator concentration regulating the porous structure of activated carbon for supercapacitor application

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Abstract  

The porous structure and specific surface area (SSA) of activated carbon (AC) materials are two important factors to determine the performance of supercapacitors, and the emphasis in the current research is on how to regulate the pore structure of AC by an effective method. In this work, the low-cost and widely sourced semi-coke was employed to prepare AC in one step by the chemical activation method, which can effectively decrease the production cost of AC and promotes its application. Orthogonal experiments were designed to reveal the effect of process parameters on the electrochemical performance. It was found that the activator concentration has an important effect on the pore structure. When the mass ratio of the activator to semi-coke (Ras) remained unchanged, the large heating rate would result in a high activator concentration that delivered stronger etching power at the target temperature and thus remarkably affects the pore size and the pore volume of AC. When the heating rate changed from 2 to 7 ℃ min−1, there had a considerable SSA increase of ca. 200 m2 g−1. To further reveal the effect of activator concentration on the pore’s property, the different mass ratios of the activator to semi-coke (Ras) were used. A series of ACs were produced, and the one that was prepared at 600 ℃ in a heating rate of 5 ℃ min−1 in a Ras value of 3:1 delivered a high specific capacitance of 376 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 and a good cycling performance with a capacity retention of 98% after 10,000 cycles at 10 A g−1. This work provided new inspiration for the preparation of high-performance activated carbon with low-cost semi-coke.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the Joint Funds of the Natural Science Basic Research Project of Shaanxi Province (No. 2021JLM-23) and Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22109126) and Shaanxi Province Key Point Research and Development Project (2022GY-378) and Key Laboratory of Coal Resources Exploration and Comprehensive Utilization, Ministry of Land Resources (KF2021-12).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, 710054, People’s Republic of China

    Sai Li, Jinkui Zhang, Jinjin Han & Kai Liu

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, People’s Republic of China

    Xin Dai & Yuanzhen Chen

  3. Key Laboratory of Coal Resources Exploration and Comprehensive Utilization, Ministry of Land Resources, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

    Yan Wu

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  1. Sai Li
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Li, S., Zhang, J., Han, J. et al. Activator concentration regulating the porous structure of activated carbon for supercapacitor application. Ionics 29, 2465–2474 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-023-04984-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-023-04984-2

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