Revisit to the correlation of surface characteristic nature with performance of N-enriched carbon-based supercapacitor

Abstract Functional carbon materials have been considered as promising electrode materials for supercapacitor due to large charge-storable surface area, good surface wettability, high electrical conductivity, and additional pseudocapacitance. However, it is still limited to investigate the effect of material parameters of functional carbon materials on electrochemical performance. In this report, we revisit to the correlation between material parameters and capacitance, utilizing nitrogen-enriched porous carbon as a model functional carbon material. Material parameters of N-enriched porous carbon synthesized from melamine cyanurate mesocrystal have been controlled by modulating condition of chemical activation. The contribution of capacitance has been classified through the Trasatti procedure in order to examine the correlation precisely. Furthermore, due to large micropore-scale surface area and high content of surface functionality, the resulting materials exhibit high specific capacitance (328 F g −1 at 0.5 A g −1 ) and outstanding cycle stability (99.9% of capacitance retention at 5 A g −1 after 5000 cycles) when evaluated as an electrode material for supercapacitor.