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Using inorganic dynamic porogens for preparing high-surface-area capacitive carbons with tailored microporesXiao-Ling Dong, Wen-Cui Li, Biao Jiang, Yu-Qi Zhou and An-Hui Lu * A high-performance capacitive carbon should simultaneously possess the characteristics of high surface area, high tap density, electrical conductivity and good wettability to electrolyte. However, these features are usually incompatible and dicult to integrate into one carbon material. Herein, we consider this challenge and report a new preparation method of capacitive carbons that can meet the abovementioned characteristics using an inorganic CuCl salt as a dynamic porogen and L-glutamic acid as a carbon precursor. When the amount of CuCl 2 was controlled for exact coordination of Cu 2+ with NH 2 and COO of L-glutamic acid, Cu 2+ was atomically dispersed by the formation of CuN and COOCu. Upon high-temperature pyrolysis, Cu 2+ was gradually reduced to Cu + ; meanwhile, the evaporation of CuCl at around 350 C resulted in the formation of uniform ultramicropores. After further pyrolysis to 900 C, the remaining copper species were reduced to Cu and then catalyzed the graphitization of the carbon product. When the amount of CuCl 2 exceeded theoretical coordinated proportions, the molten salt eect of the aggregation of CuCl occurred over 450 C, resulting in the generation of supermicropores. Eventually, the obtained carbon showed an exceptionally high surface area of 2051 m 2 g 1 and 3.22 at% nitrogen content with tap density of 0.35 g cm 3 , which resulted in specic capacitance reaching 273 F g 1 at 0.5 A g 1 and charge transfer of 0.21 U with cycle life over 20 000 cycles as a supercapacitor electrode. Considering the recyclability of the used inorganic salt and after comparing with conventional surfactant templating, we conclude that our synthesis opens up a new energy-saving approach for preparing porous carbon with tailorable micropore sizes and high surface areas even at temperature as low as 350 C. 1 Introduction Carbon-based supercapacitors, which store charges predomi- nantly at the interface between a solid electrode and liquid electrolyte, are energy storage devices having high power and long cycle life. 1,2 To achieve high electrochemical performance for applicable devices, carbon materials are required to simul- taneously possess a large specic surface area, high tap density, outstanding electrolyte accessibility to the intra-pore space, and good electrical conductivity. Unfortunately, these desired physical features are generally incompatible in a single carbon material and tend to be mutually competing. 3,4 The increase in surface area for capacitive carbon materials is a straightforward strategy to enhance the capacitance; however, it was found to be insucient as space constriction for charge accommodation yielded incomplete charge screening and limited capacitance. 5 Normally, a certain amount of meso- and macropores is benecial for the transfer of electrolyte ions, but it always lowers the tap density, resulting in small volu- metric capacitances since the spaces within the mesopores and macropores are not eective for storing ions and may be oo- ded by the electrolyte, consequently increasing the weight of the device without improving the capacitance. 69 It has been revealed that carbon materials have subnanometer pores and those with the same size of the electrolyte ions (normally 0.71.0 nm) are the best option because desolvation of the ions leads to surprisingly high capacitance. 1012 In this regard, microporous carbons with optimized pore structures are attractive for achieving high volumetric capacitance. On the other hand, electrical conductivity can be enhanced by nitrogen inclusion since more electron-rich N species can bring more electrons to the delocalized p-system of carbon materials. 13 Nitrogen-doping is also a practical way to improve the wettability and the electro-active surface area of the elec- trodes without sacricing the power density. 1416 To enhance the electrical conductivity, graphitic frameworks are oen used and can be realized through high-temperature treatment or catalytic graphitization. 1720 However, the developed microporosity oen State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, P. R. China. E-mail: [email protected]; Fax: +86-411-84986112; Tel: +86-411-84986112 Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c8ta10411e Cite this: J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 687 Received 29th October 2018 Accepted 26th November 2018 DOI: 10.1039/c8ta10411e rsc.li/materials-a This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019 J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 687692 | 687 Journal of Materials Chemistry A PAPER Published on 27 November 2018. Downloaded by Dalian University of Technology on 6/27/2019 9:02:51 AM. View Article Online View Journal | View Issue

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Page 1: Journal of Materials Chemistry A - dlut.edu.cnanhuilu.dlut.edu.cn/ky/article/185.pdfcopper salt. 2 Experimental section The synthesis of capacitive carbons All chemicals were used

Journal ofMaterials Chemistry A

PAPER

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View Article OnlineView Journal | View Issue

Using inorganic d

State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals,

University of Technology, Dalian 116024, P

Fax: +86-411-84986112; Tel: +86-411-84986

† Electronic supplementary informa10.1039/c8ta10411e

Cite this: J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7,687

Received 29th October 2018Accepted 26th November 2018

DOI: 10.1039/c8ta10411e

rsc.li/materials-a

This journal is © The Royal Society of C

ynamic porogens for preparinghigh-surface-area capacitive carbons with tailoredmicropores†

Xiao-Ling Dong, Wen-Cui Li, Biao Jiang, Yu-Qi Zhou and An-Hui Lu *

A high-performance capacitive carbon should simultaneously possess the characteristics of high surface

area, high tap density, electrical conductivity and good wettability to electrolyte. However, these features

are usually incompatible and difficult to integrate into one carbon material. Herein, we consider this

challenge and report a new preparation method of capacitive carbons that can meet the

abovementioned characteristics using an inorganic CuCl salt as a dynamic porogen and L-glutamic acid

as a carbon precursor. When the amount of CuCl2 was controlled for exact coordination of Cu2+ with

NH2� and COO� of L-glutamic acid, Cu2+ was atomically dispersed by the formation of Cu–N and

COO–Cu. Upon high-temperature pyrolysis, Cu2+ was gradually reduced to Cu+; meanwhile, the

evaporation of CuCl at around 350 �C resulted in the formation of uniform ultramicropores. After further

pyrolysis to 900 �C, the remaining copper species were reduced to Cu and then catalyzed the

graphitization of the carbon product. When the amount of CuCl2 exceeded theoretical coordinated

proportions, the molten salt effect of the aggregation of CuCl occurred over 450 �C, resulting in the

generation of supermicropores. Eventually, the obtained carbon showed an exceptionally high surface

area of 2051 m2 g�1 and 3.22 at% nitrogen content with tap density of 0.35 g cm�3, which resulted in

specific capacitance reaching 273 F g�1 at 0.5 A g�1 and charge transfer of 0.21 U with cycle life over

20 000 cycles as a supercapacitor electrode. Considering the recyclability of the used inorganic salt and

after comparing with conventional surfactant templating, we conclude that our synthesis opens up

a new energy-saving approach for preparing porous carbon with tailorable micropore sizes and high

surface areas even at temperature as low as 350 �C.

1 Introduction

Carbon-based supercapacitors, which store charges predomi-nantly at the interface between a solid electrode and liquidelectrolyte, are energy storage devices having high power andlong cycle life.1,2 To achieve high electrochemical performancefor applicable devices, carbon materials are required to simul-taneously possess a large specic surface area, high tap density,outstanding electrolyte accessibility to the intra-pore space, andgood electrical conductivity. Unfortunately, these desiredphysical features are generally incompatible in a single carbonmaterial and tend to be mutually competing.3,4

The increase in surface area for capacitive carbon materialsis a straightforward strategy to enhance the capacitance;however, it was found to be insufficient as space constriction forcharge accommodation yielded incomplete charge screening

School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian

. R. China. E-mail: [email protected];

112

tion (ESI) available. See DOI:

hemistry 2019

and limited capacitance.5 Normally, a certain amount of meso-and macropores is benecial for the transfer of electrolyte ions,but it always lowers the tap density, resulting in small volu-metric capacitances since the spaces within the mesopores andmacropores are not effective for storing ions and may be oo-ded by the electrolyte, consequently increasing the weight of thedevice without improving the capacitance.6–9 It has beenrevealed that carbon materials have subnanometer pores andthose with the same size of the electrolyte ions (normally 0.7–1.0nm) are the best option because desolvation of the ions leads tosurprisingly high capacitance.10–12 In this regard, microporouscarbons with optimized pore structures are attractive forachieving high volumetric capacitance.

On the other hand, electrical conductivity can be enhancedby nitrogen inclusion since more electron-rich N species canbring more electrons to the delocalized p-system of carbonmaterials.13 Nitrogen-doping is also a practical way to improvethe wettability and the electro-active surface area of the elec-trodes without sacricing the power density.14–16 To enhance theelectrical conductivity, graphitic frameworks are oen used andcan be realized through high-temperature treatment or catalyticgraphitization.17–20 However, the developed microporosity oen

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 687–692 | 687

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lowers the electronic conductivity and tap density. Hence, theremaining challenge is to explore a new preparation method forcarbon materials that can offer multiple synergistic effects ofabove-mentioned benecial characteristics for the best capaci-tive performance.

To address these issues, we developed a new strategy for thepreparation of high-performance capacitive carbons usinga volatile inorganic salt as a dynamic porogen and coppercomplex as the carbon precursor. The synthesized carbonshowed a high surface area of 2051 m2 g�1, highly developedultramicropores and supermicropores, and high tap density of0.35 g cm�3, thus exhibiting well balanced incompatible char-acteristics in regular microporous carbons. The preparedcarbon demonstrated superior capacitive performance ascompared to commercial capacitive carbon and previously re-ported porous carbons.21–23 Moreover, extraction of CuCl2 fromthe ltrate by simple distillation allowed cyclic utilization ofcopper salt.

2 Experimental sectionThe synthesis of capacitive carbons

All chemicals were used as received without further purica-tion. In the synthesis procedure, L-glutamic acid (99%, J&KScientic Ltd) was rst dissolved in water to form a clear solu-tion, followed by adding CuCl2$2H2O (99%, Sinopharm Chem-ical Reagent Co., Ltd.) solution under vigorous stirring.Subsequently, the reaction solution was evaporated to drynesson a rotary evaporator and the obtained compounds were driedat 90 �C followed by pyrolysis at 900 �C for 2 h under an argonow at a heating rate of 5 �C min�1. The obtained compositeswere denoted as MCPx-900, where x indicated the molar ratio ofCuCl2 to L-glutamic acid. Additionally, to determine the poreformation process, the compounds were carbonized at 350 �Cfor 2, 4 and 8 h, and the obtained products were denoted asMCPx-350-t (here, t refers to the carbonization time). Aerpyrolysis, all the samples were further treated with hydrochloricacid (37%) to remove the Cu species and further washed withdeionized water to neutrality. It is worth noting that the copperions could be recycled in this experiment.

Structure characterization

Nitrogen sorption isotherms were measured on a MicromeriticsASAP 2020 device at 77 K. Prior to analysis, all samples weredegassed under a pressure of 0.05 mbar at 200 �C for 12 h. Thespecic surface areas (SBET) were estimated by the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) method. Total pore volumes (Vtotal) werecalculated from the amount of nitrogen adsorbed at a relativepressure P/P0 of 0.99. The pore size distribution was derivedfrom the adsorption isotherm based on the non-local densityfunctional theory (NLDFT). The powder X-ray diffractionpatterns (XRD) were measured using a PANalytical-X-pertdiffractometer with Cu Ka radiation (40 kV, 40 mA, l ¼ 1.5406A). Raman spectra were recorded on a DXRMicroscope (ThermoFisher, America) with the excitation from the 532 nm line of anAr-ion laser (5 mW). The morphology of the samples was

688 | J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 687–692

characterized using Hitachi S-4800 eld-emission scanningelectron microscopy (SEM). Transmission electron microscopy(TEM) images were measured by an FEI Technai F30 equipmentoperating at the voltage of 200 kV. Elemental analysis wascarried out on a CHNO elemental analyzer (Vario EL III Ele-mentar). An ESCALAB250 electron spectrometer was used for X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. All the bindingenergies were calibrated via referencing to C 1s binding energy(284.6 eV).

Electrical measurements

The working electrodes were prepared by mixing 80% porouscarbons, 10% carbon black and 10% polytetrauoroethylenebinders. The mass loading of the active material was approxi-mately 3 mg cm�2. The cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostaticcharge–discharge cycling (GC) and electrochemical impedancespectroscopy (EIS) measurements were carried out ona CHI660D electrochemical workstation (CH Instruments Inc.,Shanghai) using a three-electrode cell composed of Hg/HgO asthe reference electrode and a Pt plate as the counter electrode in6 M KOH electrolyte at 25 �C. EIS measurements were carriedout in the range of 0.01 Hz–100 kHz with the amplitude of 5 mV.The specic gravimetric capacitances were calculated by the GCtest using the equation C ¼ I/(mdv/dt), where I (A) is theconstant discharge current, dv/dt is the slope of discharge curveand m (g) is the mass of active material. The cycle stabilityperformances were measured based on a two-electrode systemcomposed of symmetric active materials on a multichannelelectrochemical workstation (Arbin Instruments, USA).

3 Results and discussion

We report that L-glutamic acid, containing functional groups ofNH2 and COOH, could coordinate to Cu2+ with the theoreticalmolar ratio of 1 : 1, as schematically illustrated in Fig. S1.† Theformation of COO–Cu and Cu–N enabled homogeneous distri-bution of Cu2+ on a molecular level and kept the N speciesstable.24,25 The copper complexes with various molar ratios ofCuCl2 to L-glutamic acid were subjected to pyrolysis at 900 �C toproduce a series of porous carbon materials. The catalyticgraphitization of carbon induced by Cu has been reported tooccur at a temperature around 825 �C.26 Therefore, to achievethe desired conductivity and specic surface area as well ascarbon yield, pyrolysis was conducted at 900 �C. The molar ratioof CuCl2 to L-glutamic acid exhibited great effect on porousstructures of the carbon materials. When the molar ratio ofCuCl2 to L-glutamic acid was xed at 1 : 1, the sample MC1-900presented a typical I nitrogen adsorption isotherm witha narrow knee at very low relative pressures (P/P0 < 0.01)(Fig. 1a), and the pore size was uniformly concentrated at0.52 nm (Fig. 1b). With the increase in the molar ratio of CuCl2to L-glutamic acid, a more pronounced nitrogen uptake wasobserved and a systematic enlarging of micropores occurred.The pore size distribution of MC2-900 was observed around0.52 nm and 0.72 nm, whereas the additional supermicroporesof 1.12 nm for MC4-900 were observed (Fig. 1b). As seen in Table

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Fig. 1 (a) Nitrogen sorption isotherms and (b) the corresponding poresize distributions of MC1-900, MC2-900 and MC4-900. (c) XRDpatterns of as-prepared materials after acid treatment. (d) Ramanspectra of the obtained materials. (e, f) TEM images of MC4-900. Theinsert in (f) represents a magnified view of the selected portion of theimage.

Fig. 2 TEM images of MCP1-350-2 h (a) and MCP4-350-2 h (b); theinset in (a) is a magnified view. Nitrogen sorption isotherms (c, d) andthe corresponding pore size distributions (e, f) of the obtained

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S1,† the surface area sharply increased from 527 m2 g�1 forMC1-900 to 1358m2 g�1 for MC2-900 and further to 2051m2 g�1

for MC4-900.XRD patterns (Fig. 1c) showed two peaks located at around

26� and 44�, indexed to the (002) and (100) planes, respectively,which were the reections of the typical turbostratic carbon,demonstrating the presence of graphitic carbon.27,28 Clearly, the(002) peak of MC4-900 shied to a higher angle, revealinga narrower interlayer distance and indicating a higher degree ofgraphitization. In parallel to XRD, broad 2D bands in the 2500–3500 cm�1 region were observed in the Raman spectra (Fig. 1d),which were associated with a second-order zone boundaryphonon mode for graphitized carbons.29 The calculated inten-sity ratio (IG/ID) of D-band (�1349 cm�1) and G-band(�1580 cm�1) increased from 0.54 for MC1-900 to 0.58 forMC4-900, indicating relatively higher ordered structures andgraphitization degrees. The graphitization degrees of thematerials were ascribed to catalytic function of the coppernanoparticles,19 as observed in Fig. S2a.†

TEM image (Fig. 1e) of one representative sample MC4-900shows homogeneous morphology without visible meso- andmacropores. High resolution TEM image (Fig. 1f) clearly evi-denced highly connected and worm-like microporous struc-tures, and the graphitic domains could be clearly seen (inset). Inaddition, the tap densities were measured to be 0.58 g cm�3 for

This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019

MC1-900, 0.45 g cm�3 for MC2-900 and 0.35 g cm�3 for MC4-900(Table S1†), which were comparable to that of commercialcapacitive carbon of YP-50 (Kuraray Chemical, tap density r ¼0.41 g cm�3, SBET ¼ 1744 m2 g�1). Therefore, the pyrolysis ofcopper complex provides an efficient strategy for the prepara-tion of carbon products, simultaneously possessing therequired characteristics of a high-performance capacitivecarbon.

In principle, Cu2+ can be in situ reduced to Cu+ and thenmetallic Cu by the decomposed reductive gases generatedduring pyrolysis of the carbon precursor. To understand theeffect of Cu species on the formation of the developed ultra-micropores and supermicropores, we performed the pyrolysis ofcopper complexes at 350 �C for 2 h, which was consistent withthe volatilization temperature of CuCl.30,31 The obtainedsamples MCP1-350-2 h and MCP4-350-2 h were directly char-acterized by XRD without the Cu leaching step. The diffractionpeaks of MCP1-350-2 h corresponded to CuCl and metallic Cu,whereas only CuCl phase with much stronger peaks wasdetected for MCP4-350-2 h (Fig. S2a†). The TEM image of MCP1-350-2 h (Fig. 2a) dominantly shows the homogeneous surface inthe absence of distinguishable particles and occasionally,several particles with an average size of 50 nm can be observedin some part of the materials (Fig. S2b†). In contrast, muchmore uniformly distributed CuCl nanoparticles were observedin MCP4-350-2 h (Fig. 2b). As a highly volatile compound, the insitu formed highly dispersed CuCl not only evaporated, facili-tating bottom-up formation of open ultramicropores, but also

materials.

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Fig. 3 Electrochemical performance of MC1-900, MC2-900 andMC4-900 electrodes: (a) CV curves at a potential scan rate of 5mV s�1,(b) GC plots at a current density of 0.5 A g�1, (c) variation of specificcapacitance against the current density of the samples, (d) Nyquistplots showing the imaginary part versus the real part of the impedancein the 0.01 Hz–100 kHz range. The inset in (d) shows a zoom-in of thehigh frequency part.

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acted as molten salt templates (426 �C) for the formation ofmicropores. For MCP1-350-2 h and MCP4-350-2 h, the removalof Cu species by acid treatment resulted in the correspondingsamples MC1-350-2 h andMC4-350-2 h with the surface areas of278 m2 g�1 and 592 m2 g�1. As a comparison, the samplederived from the pyrolysis of phenolic resin at 350 �C for 2 h(labelled as RF-350-2 h) showed two peaks indexed to the (002)and (100) planes of the graphite in XRD prole (Fig. S3†) and thelimited surface area of 18 m2 g�1 (Fig. S4†). More importantly,the pore sizes of MC1-350-2 h and MC4-350-2 h were uniformlyconcentrated at around 0.50 nm (Fig. 2e–f), which originatedfrom the volatilization of CuCl. Pyrolysis of the complexprecursors at 350 �C enabled the formation of carbonaceousmaterials with high specic surface areas associated withextremely uniform ultramicropores, which have not been re-ported so far.

To understand the structural evolution induced by volatili-zation of CuCl, the holding times at 350 �C were furtherextended to 4 h and 8 h. The XRD patterns in Fig. S3† displaypeaks at 2qz 26�, corresponding to the (002) plane of graphiticcarbon. TEM image (Fig. S5a†) of one representative sample(MC1-350-4 h) shows that the material possesses a homoge-neous structure with abundant pores. In particular, at the edgeof the material, the formation of curved graphitic layers wasclearly identied (Fig. S5b†), implying that the graphiticdomains were formed at temperatures as low as 350 �C. Thenitrogen sorption isotherms of all samples indicated typicalmicroporous features (Fig. 2c and d) and the pore size distri-butions were in a fairly narrow range of 0.50–0.56 nm (Fig. 2eand f). The extension of holding time at 350 �C caused signi-cant increase in the surface area. When the molar ratio of CuCl2to L-glutamic acid was xed at 1 : 1, the surface area of thesample was proportional to the annealing time, and it increasedfrom 278 m2 g�1 for MC1-350-2 h to 623 m2 g�1 for MC1-350-4 hand further to 860 m2 g�1 for MC1-350-8 h (Table 1). When themolar ratio of CuCl2 to L-glutamic acid was maintained at 4 : 1,the specic surface area of MC4-350-8 h nally reached 871 m2

g�1, which was nearly the same as that of MC1-350-8 h (860 m2

g�1). At this temperature, the formation of pores wasmainly dueto volatilization of highly dispersed CuCl species. When theamount of CuCl2 exceeded the theoretical coordinated propor-tions and the pyrolysis temperature was higher than themeltingpoint of CuCl, the molten salt effect of the aggregated CuCl

Table 1 Structural parameters of the synthesized materials

Samplen (CuCl2)/n(L-glutamic acid) Pyrolysis time (h) Temp. (�C)

MC1-900 1 : 1 2 900MC2-900 2 : 1 2 900MC4-900 4 : 1 2 900MC1-350-2 h 1 : 1 2 350MC1-350-4 h 1 : 1 4 350MC1-350-8 h 1 : 1 8 350MC4-350-2 h 4 : 1 2 350MC4-350-4 h 4 : 1 4 350MC4-350-8 h 4 : 1 8 350

690 | J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 687–692

particles led to the generation of supermicropores of 0.72 nm insample MC2-900 and even larger supermicropores of 1.12 nm inMC4-900.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was conducted todetermine the surface chemical properties of the samples. FromXPS results (Fig. S6, Table S1†), the atomic percentages of N inMC1-900, MC2-900 and MC4-900 were estimated to be around2.92%, 3.83% and 3.46%, respectively, which were higher thanthat of the sample prepared by direct pyrolysis of L-glutamicacid at the same temperature (N: 1.99%). The enhanced inter-action between Cu cations and the ion pair electrons in nitrogenfacilitated immobilization of nitrogen in the carbon framework.The N 1s spectra were deconvoluted into four peaks: pyridinic N(N-6), pyrrolic/pyridonic N (N-5), quaternary N (N-Q) andoxidic N (N-O)32 (Fig. S7a, Table S2†). N-Q-dominated N-dopingcould effectively improve electronic conductivity, electrontransfer and capacitance, especially at high rates.33,34 As shownin C 1s spectra (Fig. S7b, Table S2†), the peaks at 284.6, 286.2,

SBET (m2 g�1) Smic (m2 g�1) Vtotal (cm

3 g�1) Vmic (cm3 g�1)

527 524 0.24 0.201358 1350 0.57 0.542051 2017 0.88 0.85278 275 0.14 0.11623 620 0.25 0.24860 828 0.36 0.33592 586 0.40 0.23577 546 0.25 0.22871 864 0.35 0.33

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Fig. 4 Electrochemical performances of MC4-900 measured in two-electrode configuration in 6.0 M KOH. (a) CV curves for scan ratesfrom 5 to 200 mV s�1. (b) GC curves under different constant currents(unit: A g�1). (c) Cycling stability tests at a current density of 1 A g�1.

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287.4, 288.8 and 290.3 eV were ascribed to C]C, C–N, C–O/C–O–C, C]O, and O–C]O bonds, respectively,35 and sp2-hybrid-ized carbon was predominant, which was benecial for theformation of uniform ultramicropores or supermicropores.36

Besides, the atomic percentages of oxygen inMC1-900, MC2-900and MC4-900 were 16.34%, 15.88% and 21.56%, respectively;the high content of oxygen could improve carbon electrodewettability for electrolyte penetration.37

Considering the high surface area, narrow distribution ofmicropore size, well graphitized feature and good wettability,the electrochemical performances of MCs were assessed aselectrodes for supercapacitors in a three-electrode cell cong-uration using an aqueous KOH solution (6.0 M) as an electro-lyte. Nearly rectangular cyclic voltammetry (CV) curves (Fig. 3a),the typical characteristic of classic double layer capacitivebehaviour, were presented in all cases, and MC4-900 electrodeexhibited the highest enclosed area in its CV curves. The gal-vanostatic charge–discharge (GC) curves exhibited relativelysymmetric shapes, further conrming their capacitor-likenature (Fig. 3b). At current density of 0.5 A g�1, the speciccapacitance of MC4-900 calculated based on the dischargecurves reached 273 F g�1, larger than 258 F g�1 of MC2-900 and146 F g�1 of MC1-900. Such value is located at the top level forthe reported carbon-based materials (Table S3†). For compar-ison, a supercapacitor constructed with a commercial capacitivecarbon YP-50 was also tested, the specic capacitance of YP-50was determined to be 155 F g�1 at 0.5 A g�1. The highercapacitance of MC4-900 could be ascribed to the combinedeffect of the carbon texture characteristics and surface func-tionalities. The most efficient ion adsorption was achieved inthe materials with surface areas as high as possible and poresperfectly adapted to the ion size simultaneously. Besides, thehighly doped heteroatoms could contribute to pseudocapacitivecharge storage and electron conductivity.

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Fig. 3c shows the current density dependence of the capac-itance of all the samples. MC4-900 electrode exhibited betterrate performance, and 70% of the capacitance was maintainedaer increasing the current density to 50 A g�1. Fig. S8† repre-sents CV and GC curves for the MC4-900 electrode undervarious scan rates and current densities. The capacitive currentincreased accordingly with the scan rate (Fig. S8a†), and the CVcurves presented rectangle-like shapes without a very obliqueangle even at a scan rate as high as 200 mV s�1. GC curves(Fig. S8b†) showed good symmetry and nearly linear dischargeslopes even at the high current density of 50 A g�1 with ratherlimited voltage (IR) drop of 0.10 V, also indicating rapid I–Vresponse. These results revealed high-power performance of thesynthesized carbon material due to its balanced characteristics.

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was furtherused to analyse electrolyte ion transport and other electro-chemical behaviours over the frequency range from 0.01 to 100kHz. As shown in Fig. 3d, all three electrodes exhibited a similarNyquist plot shape; at the high frequency region, a depressedsemicircle was observed on the Z0 axis and at the low-frequencyregion, we observed an approximately straight line parallel tothe Z00 axis, indicating ideal capacitive behaviour. Appreciably,for the MC4-900 electrode, the slope of the Nyquist plot wasmuch larger than that of MC1-900 and MC2-900 electrodes,suggesting that the MC4-900 electrode demonstrated a fasterion-diffusion rate; this was observed due to higher proportion oflarge microspores, resulting in improved electrolyte diffusionefficiency. The intrinsic ohmic resistance Rs (the rst interceptalong the real axis) was estimated to be 0.28 U for MC4-900 andwas lower than 0.30 U for MC2-900 and 0.45 U for MC1-900. Thecharge transfer resistances Rct of MC4-900 (0.21U) andMC2-900(0.22 U) electrodes were lower than that of MC1-900 (0.37 U).

Furthermore, we constructed a symmetrical supercapacitorusing two pieces of MC4-900 electrodes with the same size andweight and tested it in 6.0 M KOH electrolyte. As shown inFig. 4a, b, CV and GC of a symmetrical cell showed nearlyrectangular and triangular traces, respectively, indicatingcapacitive behavior. The supercapacitor provided a capacitanceof 41 F g�1 at a current density of 0.5 A g�1 and still retained 30 Fg�1 at a current density of 50 A g�1. Moreover, the electro-chemical stability of the supercapacitor was tested by contin-uous galvanostatic charge–discharge cycling at a current densityof 1.0 A g�1. As seen in Fig. 4c, the specic capacitanceremained at 101.5% of the initial value aer 20 000 cycles,indicating excellent electrochemical stability of the fabricatedsupercapacitor device.

4 Conclusions

In summary, we report a new synthesis method of a nitrogen-doped microporous carbon with high specic surface area,narrow pore size distribution, good electrical conductivity andhigh tap density. The preparation of the capacitive carbon wasbased on the concept of using inorganic dynamic pyrogens andcoordination interaction between L-glutamic acid and CuCl2.The in situ formed CuCl acted as a pyrogen for the generation ofultramicropores and supermicropores depending on the ratio

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of CuCl2 to L-glutamic acid. Moreover, the in situ producedmetallic Cu featured catalytic conversion of an amorphouscarbon to sp2-hybridized carbon. The microporous carbonpossessed not only a large surface area of 2051 m2 g�1 but alsotap density of 0.35 g cm�3. In 6 M KOH electrolyte, high speciccapacitance of 273 F g�1 at current density of 0.5 A g�1 wasachieved and the corresponding supercapacitor displayeda long cycle life with perfect capacitance retention over 20 000cycles.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conicts to declare.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Fund for theNational Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21776041and No. 21875028), and Cheung Kong Scholars Program ofChina (T2015036).

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