Cotton fabrics-derived flexible nitrogen-doped activated carbon cloth for high-performance supercapacitors in organic electrolyte. (10th September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dai, Pengcheng; Zhang, Shuo; Liu, Haijun; Yan, Liting; Gu, Xin; Li, Liangjun; Liu, Dandan; Zhao, Xuebo
• Is Part Of: Electrochimica acta. Volume 354(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-09-10
• Subjects: Activated carbon cloth -- Controllable pore sizes -- Heteroatom doping -- Organic electrolyte -- Supercapacitor; Electrochemistry -- Periodicals; Electrochemistry, Industrial -- Periodicals; 541.37
• DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2020.136717
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-4686

Abstract

Highlights: Flexible N-doped active carbon cloth is synthesized using cotton fabrics as a precursor. As-prepared activated carbon cloth exhibits hierarchical porous tubular fiber structure. The activated carbon cloth reveals ultrahigh power density in organic supercapacitors. The relationship between N doping and capacitive performance is well defined. Abstract: Activated carbon cloth, due to its excellent flexibility, good conductivity, and high surface area, is featured as a kind of promising material for energy storage devices. However, the non-optimized pore structures limit its application as electrode material in supercapacitors with organic electrolytes, which can provide both high energy density and power density due to the high applied cell voltage. In this paper, nitrogen-doped activated carbon cloth with hollow tubular fiber units, high surface area, controllable hierarchical porous structure, and beneficial surface functional groups, is synthesized via a simple ammonia treatment of commercial cotton fabrics. The resulting organic-electrolyte supercapacitors based on this hierarchical porous hollow carbon cloth exhibit a high specific capacitance (up to 215.9 F g −1 at 1 A g −1 ), extremely high rate capability (89% from 1 A g −1 to 200 A g −1 ), small IR drop (0.23 V at 100 A g −1 ), outstanding cycling stability (98% capacitance retention over 20 000 cycles), as well as good flexibility. This N-doped activated carbon cloth thus overcomes the drawbacks of presently available carbon cloths and opens up a new horizon toward energy storage devices with high energy density at high power density. Graphical abstract: Ultrahigh-power-density supercapacitor in organic electrolyte has been achieved by N-doped hierarchical porous carbon cloth derived from commercial cotton fabrics. Image, graphical abstract