SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE
Electrospun activated carbon nanofibers for supercapacitor electrodes†
Abstract
Porous activated carbon nanofibers have been prepared by electrospinning a H3PO4-containing polyacrylonitrile precursor. A small amount of H3PO4 (<1 wt%) serves as the activation agent during carbonization of the nanofibers. The activated carbon nanofibers have a large surface area (∼709 m2 g−1) and high porosity (0.356 cm3 g−1). A high specific capacitance of 156 F g−1 (at 0.5 A g−1) is obtained at a 1 : 10 mass ratio of H3PO4 to polyacrylonitrile. The energy density of the supercapacitor with the activated carbon nanofibers as the electrodes reaches 10.98 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 10 kW kg−1. This is ∼9 fold larger than that of carbon nanofibers without H3PO4 because the H3PO4-based activation process significantly increases both the micropore volume and the volume ratio of mesopores to micropores.
- This article is part of the themed collection: Materials for Energy storage
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