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Cellulose-derived nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon for high-performance supercapacitors

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Abstract

Heteroatom-doped porous carbon materials are one of the most promising electrodes for high-performance supercapacitors. However, the development of a simple, green and low-cost strategy for their preparation is still highly challenging. In this study, we reported a simple and sustainable preparation of nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon (NHPC) by using cellulose as raw materials. A NaOH/urea (7:12) system acted as the solvent, activator, and dopant simultaneously. The resultant NHPC has a high BET specific surface area of 2245 m2 g−1, a typically porous architecture comprising of micro-, meso-, and macropores with an appropriate average pore size of 2.83 nm, as well as a suitable nitrogen-doping degree of 3 wt%. The unique features of NHPC afford an outstanding specific capacitance of 300 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1, representing a new capacitive record among the cellulose-derived carbon electrodes reported so far. The NHPC//NHPC supercapacitor cell displays a high energy density of 17.2 Wh kg−1 at 452 W kg−1, and maintains 12.1 Wh kg−1 at 4500 W kg−1. High rate capability (81% of capacitance retention from 0.5 to 10 A g−1) and excellent cycling stability (5% loss after 10,000 cycles) have been also demonstrated. The facile and affordable synthesis route together with outstanding energy storage behavior endows the cellulose-derived NHPC with promising application for supercapacitors.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu province (No. BK20171295 and BK20150507), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51672114 and 51272094), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2015M580392, 2017T100332) and Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX18_2235).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Material Science & Engineering, School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Peng Song, XiaoPing Shen, XiaoMei He, KaiHui Feng, LiRong Kong, ZhenYuan Ji & GuoXing Zhu

  2. School of Environmental & Chemical Engineering, College of Biotechnology & Sericultural Research Institute, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, 212003, People’s Republic of China

    LinZhi Zhai & DongYang Zhang

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  1. Peng Song
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Correspondence to XiaoPing Shen or DongYang Zhang.

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Song, P., Shen, X., He, X. et al. Cellulose-derived nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon for high-performance supercapacitors. Cellulose 26, 1195–1208 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-018-2115-6

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