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Controllably fabricating carbon microspheres with hierarchical porous structure for supercapacitors

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Abstract

The porous carbon microspheres (PCS) with hierarchical pore structure were fabricated by annealing the mixtures of aluminum potassium sulfate, calcium carbonate, and corn starch in a tube furnace in N2 atmospheres. The mechanisms of forming carbon microspheres and producing the hierarchical pore structures were explored. The result shows that formation of carbon spheres depends on the pretreated starch by KAl (SO4)2, and CaCO3 can promote more mesoporous structure produced. The resulting PCS-Ca1 electrode exhibits a high capacitance of 300 F g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A g−1, a superior rate capability of 228 F g−1 at 20 A g−1, and almost no capacitance fading (only 0.6% loss after 10,000 cycles) in 6 mol L−1 KOH electrolyte. The symmetric supercapacitor fabricated with PCS-Ca1 electrodes displays a high energy density of 8.54 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 125 W kg−1 in 6 mol L−1 KOH electrolyte.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundations of China (no. 21703152), State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry of Jilin University (no. 17JCQNJC06100), and Science and Technology Correspondent Project of Tianjin (nos. 17JCTPJC47300 and 18JCTPJC61300).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering & State Key Lab Separat Membranes & Membrane Proc, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Jianguo Yu, Yao Li, Yuning Qu, Honghui Shen & Wenjie Yu

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering & Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Fibers and Energy Storage Technology, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Young-Uk Kwon & Yongnan Zhao

  3. Department of Chemistry, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea

    Young-Uk Kwon

Authors
  1. Jianguo Yu
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  2. Yao Li
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  3. Yuning Qu
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  4. Honghui Shen
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  5. Wenjie Yu
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  6. Young-Uk Kwon
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  7. Yongnan Zhao
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Correspondence to Jianguo Yu or Yuning Qu.

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Yu, J., Li, Y., Qu, Y. et al. Controllably fabricating carbon microspheres with hierarchical porous structure for supercapacitors. Ionics 25, 3341–3349 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-019-02885-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-019-02885-x

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