Nitrogen-enriched multimodal porous carbons for supercapacitors, fabricated from inclusion complexes hosted by urea hydrates

Abstract

In this study, we fabricated nitrogen-enriched multimodal porous carbons (NMPCs) from a self-assembled inclusion complex induced by the interaction between urea hydrates as host molecules and cellulose molecules as guest molecules for supercapacitors. The novel carbon material could be obtained on a gram-scale due to the simple synthetic process and widely available precursor, cellulose, from markets and had a three-dimensionally interconnected structure, as well as multimodal porous characteristics and a large amount of nitrogen (10.5 wt%). The NMPCs exhibited a high capacitance due to the pseudocapacitive behaviors of the nitrogen groups, and their multimodal structure facilitated the ideal capacitive behavior as a result of the fast ionic motion. Moreover, the NMPCs exhibited good cycle stability and a high degree of reversibility in repetitive charge/discharge cycling.