Tuning the porous texture and specific surface area of nanoporous carbons for supercapacitor electrodes by adjusting the hydrothermal synthesis temperature

Abstract

Nanoporous carbons with ordered mesopores were synthesized by the hydrothermal treatment of environmentally friendly carbohydrate precursor and Pluronic F127 as the soft template. The pore texture, pore size distribution and specific surface area of the nanoporous carbons were found to be very sensitive to the hydrothermal synthesis temperature. Long-range ordered mesoporous carbon with a specific surface area of above 1100 m² g⁻¹ was achieved at the hydrothermal synthesis temperature of 130 °C, and showed a large electrochemical capacitance of ∼290 F g⁻¹ at scan rate of 1 mV s⁻¹ in 6 M KOH aqueous electrolyte together with electrochemical stability for up to 6000 cycles of galvanostatic charge–discharge at 10 A g⁻¹.