Carbon nitride as a new way to facilitate the next generation of carbon-based supercapacitors

Abstract

As a green and earth abundant material, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄) with aromatic tri-s-triazine units has become a new research hotspot and drawn broad interdisciplinary attention in area of energy storage and conversion and in recent years has shown great potential for application in supercapacitors, which makes it a promising candidate to complement graphene in material chemistry. It exhibits a wealth of attractive properties, including chemical and thermal stability, a nitrogen rich framework, environmentally friendly characteristics and mild synthesis conditions. However, g-C₃N₄ is mainly limited in electrochemical-related applications because of its inherent low electronic conductivity and low surface area. This review summarizes recent advances in the usage of g-C₃N₄-based systems as electrode materials for supercapacitors and difficulties of carbon nitride usage as a supercapacitor (low conductivity and low surface area) and methods of overcoming these problems. We present the recent advances in the field of composite materials that include at least one carbon nitride-based component for supercapacitor electrodes. We focus on cases in which a single material by itself suffers from a drawback that can be overcome by combining it with other components, enabling the fabrication of a composite material with enhanced performance. Finally, the future opportunities of carbon nitride are addressed for use in supercapacitor devices.