Huge enhancement in supercapacitive performance of oxygen-doped nano-carbon black

In this paper, a nanometer-sized spherical carbon black (CB) with an average diameter of 30 nm was utilized to construct the compact carbon structure aiming at the electrode for high volumetric capacitance supercapacitors. The CB surface was modified by oxygen-doping to enhance the reaction with the electrolyte ions. BET result shows that oxygen-doping leads to the significant drop in both the SSA and the total pore volume of CB. Electrochemical measurement demonstrates that the oxygen-doped CB behaves an outstanding capacitive performance, its volumetric capacitance and gravimetric capacitance being up to 253 F cm−3 and 233 F g−1, almost 21.2 times improvement in comparison to those of the pristine CB (12 F cm−3 and 11 F g−1), respectively. Moreover, the oxygen-doped CB also exhibits an excellent cyclic stability, its capacitance remains 91.6% even after 10,000 cycles. Because of its advantages in mass production and low cost, the nano-sized carbon black can be considered as a competitive candidate for the mass production of the electrode materials for high volumetric performance supercapacitors.