Hierarchically designed three-dimensional macro/mesoporous carbon frameworks for advanced electrochemical capacitance storage.
Mesoporous carbon (m-C) has potential applications as porous electrodes for electrochemical energy storage, but its applications have been severely limited by the inherent fragility and low electrical conductivity. A rational strategy is presented to construct m-C into hierarchical porous structures with high flexibility by using a carbon nanotube (CNT) sponge as a three-dimensional template, and grafting Pt nanoparticles at the m-C surface. This method involves several controllable steps including solution deposition of a mesoporous silica (m-SiO2 ) layer onto CNTs, chemical vapor deposition of acetylene, and etching of m-SiO2 , resulting in a CNT@m-C core-shell or a CNT@m-C@Pt core-shell hybrid structure after Pt adsorption. The underlying CNT network provides a robust yet flexible support and a high electrical conductivity, whereas the m-C provides large surface area, and the Pt nanoparticles improves interfacial electron and ion diffusion. Consequently, specific capacitances of 203 and 311 F g(-1) have been achieved in these CNT@m-C and CNT@m-C@Pt sponges as supercapacitor electrodes, respectively, which can retain 96 % of original capacitance under large degree compression.
Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072 (P.R. China); Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (P.R. China).
Yanbing
Y
Yang
Peixu
P
Li
Shiting
S
Wu
Xinyang
X
Li
Enzheng
E
Shi
Qicang
Q
Shen
Dehai
D
Wu
Wenjing
W
Xu
Anyuan
A
Cao
Quan
Q
Yuan
carbon; mesoporous materials; nanoparticles; nanotubes; platinum