Abstract:
A scalable production of high surface area nanoporous carbon material (~ 2994 m2 g-1) with
good distribution of micro-, meso- and macro-pores was hydrothermally synthesized using both
cheap polymers and graphene foam as carbon sources. The as synthesised material shows a
unique interconnected porous graphitic structure. The electrochemical double-layer capacitor
fabricated from this nanoporous carbon material exhibited a superior supercapacitive
performance of 188 F g-1 at current density 0.5 A g-1. This corresponded to areal capacitance of
6.3 μF cm-2 coupled with a high energy of 0.56 μWh cm-2 (16.71 Wh kg-1) and a power density of
13.39 μW cm-2 (401 W kg-1) due to extended potential window of 1.6 V in KOH aqueous
electrolyte. Moreover, no capacitance loss after 10,000 cycles was observed, owing to the unique structure and large surface area of the active material. The outstanding performance of
this material as supercapacitor electrode shows that it has great potential for high performance
energy-related applications.
