Low-cost and massive preparation of nitrogen-doped porous carbon for supercapacitor application

Abstract

It is difficult for current supercapacitor electrode materials to meet the growing need for energy storage, considering their complicated preparation methods and high costs. Massive preparation strategies are of great importance for preparing low cost materials with good performance for supercapacitor applications. Herein, we developed a novel double crucible method to synthesize nitrogen-doped porous carbon (NPC) from natural flour in the molten salt of LiCl/KCl at 650 °C. The NPC material has large specific surface area (585 m² g⁻¹) and high nitrogen doping content (6.5%). When used as an active supercapacitor electrode material, it exhibits a specific capacitance of 261 F g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹ in 1 M H₂SO₄ and 94% capacitance retention at 15 A g⁻¹ after 10 000 cycles. The new synthetic method is promising for application in massive production of nitrogen-doped porous carbon for energy storage.