Hierarchical porous carbon synthesis by carbonized polymer dots-based sacrificial template for high-performance supercapacitors

Schematic diagram showing the transformation of CCPD@HCPM(CC). [Display omitted] •A pore-formation strategy can construct porous carbon with customizable structures.•CPDs are treated as the template to increase their application.•The pore-forming mechanism of CPDs was investigated by changing the crosslinker.•The supercapacitors owned both high energy density and power density. The performance of carbon-based supercapacitors is primarily determined by their porous carbons with customizable structures. Targeted regulation of the porous' size and amount is a crucial but challenging research topic to pursue higher power density and energy density. Additional loading of carbonized polymer dots (CPDs) on existing materials to optimize pore structures and modify pseudocapacitive groups is a feasible alternative. CPDs are treated as the desirable hard template, due to their high stability and controlled small-size to tailor reasonable pore distribution. Here, the hierarchical porous carbon was fabricated by activating the composite of CPDs and hyper-crosslinking polymer (HCP), which originated from the Friedel-Crafts reaction of small molecules. After the CPDs self-sacrificing template method based on the “excavation” of CPDs with small size (＜10 nm) by KOH, the optimal material owned abundant small mesopores (2 ∼ 10 nm) and large specific surface area (4241 m2·g−1). Thanks to the excellent structures, the optimized product yielded ultrahigh energy density at high power density (35.8 Wh·kg−1at 37497 W·kg−1) in 1 M TEATFB/PC. Thus, the CPDs-based pore-formation and regulation strategy is a potentially helpful alternative for fabricating high performance carbon-based supercapacitors.