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Nano Research 2016, 9(11): 3209-3221 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1199-2
Research Article | Issue | Published: 01 August 2016

Nitrogen-rich carbon spheres made by a continuous spraying process for high-performance supercapacitors

Show Author's Information Fei Sun1,2,  Haobin Wu2,  Xin Liu1,  Fang Liu2,  Huihui Zhou2,  Jihui Gao1,  Yunfeng Lu2( )
School of Energy Science and EngineeringHarbin Institute of TechnologyHarbin150001China
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular EngineeringUniversity of CaliforniaLos AngelesCA90095USA
Keywords:
supercapacitors, nitrogen doping, carbon spheres, scalable, density functional theory (DFT)
Cite this article:
Sun F, Wu H, Liu X, et al. Nitrogen-rich carbon spheres made by a continuous spraying process for high-performance supercapacitors. Nano Research, 2016, 9(11): 3209-3221. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1199-2
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Supercapacitors have high power densities, high efficiencies, and long cycling lifetimes; however, to enable their wider use, their energy densities must be significantly improved. The design and synthesis of improved carbon materials with better capacitance, rate performance, and cycling stability has emerged as the main theme of supercapacitor research. Herein, we report a facile synthetic method to prepare nitrogen-rich carbon particles based on a continuous aerosol-spraying process. The method yields particles that have high surface areas, a uniform microporous structure, and are highly N-doped, resulting in a synergism that enables the construction of supercapacitors with high energy and power density for use in both aqueous and commercial organic electrolytes. Furthermore, we have used density functional theory calculations to show that the improved performance is due to the enhanced wettability and ion adsorption interactions at the carbon/electrolyte interface that result from nitrogen doping. These findings provide new insights into the role of heteroatom doping in the capacitance enhancement of carbon materials; in addition, our method offers an efficient route for large-scale production of doped carbon.


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About this article

Nitrogen-rich carbon spheres made by a continuous spraying process for high-performance supercapacitors

Show Author's information Fei Sun1,2, Haobin Wu2, Xin Liu1, Fang Liu2, Huihui Zhou2, Jihui Gao1, Yunfeng Lu2( )
School of Energy Science and EngineeringHarbin Institute of TechnologyHarbin150001China
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular EngineeringUniversity of CaliforniaLos AngelesCA90095USA

Abstract

Supercapacitors have high power densities, high efficiencies, and long cycling lifetimes; however, to enable their wider use, their energy densities must be significantly improved. The design and synthesis of improved carbon materials with better capacitance, rate performance, and cycling stability has emerged as the main theme of supercapacitor research. Herein, we report a facile synthetic method to prepare nitrogen-rich carbon particles based on a continuous aerosol-spraying process. The method yields particles that have high surface areas, a uniform microporous structure, and are highly N-doped, resulting in a synergism that enables the construction of supercapacitors with high energy and power density for use in both aqueous and commercial organic electrolytes. Furthermore, we have used density functional theory calculations to show that the improved performance is due to the enhanced wettability and ion adsorption interactions at the carbon/electrolyte interface that result from nitrogen doping. These findings provide new insights into the role of heteroatom doping in the capacitance enhancement of carbon materials; in addition, our method offers an efficient route for large-scale production of doped carbon.

Keywords: supercapacitors, nitrogen doping, carbon spheres, scalable, density functional theory (DFT)

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 19 April 2016
Revised: 12 June 2016
Accepted: 04 July 2016
Published: 01 August 2016
Issue date: November 2016

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51376054).

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