Synthesis of novel ordered carbon nanorods and its application in electrochemical double layer capacitor

The ordered carbon nanorods (OCNR) was successfully synthesized using the mesoporous silica as hard template. XRD tests and TEM observations showed that OCNR was composed of arrayed carbon nanorods in the p6mm symmetry. N2 sorption analysis demonstrated that OCNR possessed the typically mesoporous structure and centralized mesopore distribution. Compared with Maxsorb, an active carbon with super high surface area, OCNR has superior capacitive behavior, power output and high frequency performance due to its ordered pore-structure, which favors the fast diffusion of hydrated ions. As evidenced by cyclic voltammetry measurements, OCNR shows superior capacitive behaviors (exhibiting a high capacitance of 166 F/g even at very high sweep rate of 50 mV/s, as compared to much reduced capacitance of 73 F/g for Maxsorb at the same sweep rate). OCNR can provide much higher power density while still maintaining good energy density, which offers a great potential in electrochemical double layer capacitor (EDLC), particularly for applications where both high power output and energy density are required.