Nitrogen-containing porous carbon/α-MnO2 nanowires composite electrode towards supercapacitor applications

Abstract Porous carbon composite electrodes have attracted extensive attention due to their excellent electrochemical performance toward energy storage applications. In this work, hierarchical nitrogen-containing porous carbon (HNPC) and α-MnO 2 nanowires composite electrode is prepared through a template method. The as-prepared composite electrode, characterized as one-dimensional nanowires inserted into three-dimensional interconnected porous structures, exhibits high specific capacitance of 204.6 F g −1 at 1 A g −1 and excellent cycling stability (97.2% remains after 5000 cycles). Moreover, the fabricated asymmetric supercapacitor based on HNPC//HNPC/MnO 2 achieves a wide working voltage window of 1.8 V and a high energy density up to 30.1 Wh kg −1 at a power density of 900.0 W kg −1 . The results indicate that the HNPC/MnO 2 composite electrodes with excellent electrochemical performance have promising perspective in supercapacitor applications.