Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon as Electrode Material for High-Performance Supercapacitors by a Combined Template-Activation Method

A synthetic route combining template-activation and self-doping was developed for the fabrication of N/O-enriched porous carbon (ANC). Compared with N/O-enriched porous carbon prepared by the template method (NC) alone, ANC possesses a larger specific surface area (1912.1 m2/g versus 609.3 m2/g). Furthermore, the N/O (1.34%/6.47%) combination improves surface wettability and supplies extra pseudocapacitance. Therefore, the ANC electrode material exhibits excellent storage charge capacity. The specific capacitance of ANC was 389.3 F/g with a current density of 1 A/g, which was markedly higher than that of NC (165 F/g). In addition, the ANC electrode material has excellent rate capability (296.6 F/g at 20 A/g) and remarkable electrochemical stability (93.4% retention after 10,000 cycles).