Synthesis of nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon for high-performance supercapacitors

Due to the characteristics of high specific surface area, abundant mesoporous structure and good electrochemical performance, mesoporous carbon materials are considered as good electrode materials in supercapacitors. In this report, we have successfully prepared nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon (N-MC). First, tetraethyl-orthosilicate is hydrolyzed and self-polymerized to form mesoporous silica. Meanwhile, an aniline monomer is adsorbed and polymerized in the channel of mesoporous silica under catalysis with iron. After removing the silica and iron species, the resulting N-MC is rich in nitrogen, and has a mesoporous structure and a large specific surface area (1172 m 2 g −1 ). As an electrode material, in 6 M KOH aqueous solution in a three-electrode system, N-MC exhibits an excellent specific capacitance of 334.5 F g −1 at 0.5 A g −1 and shows good cycle stability (88.5% after 5000 cycles) at 5 A g −1 , maintaining 81.1% of the original capacitance even at high current densities, demonstrating the enormous potential of N-MC in supercapacitor applications. A simple strategy to improve electrochemical performance is by in situ polymerization of monomers in a template.