A simple route to functionalized porous carbon foams from carbon nanodots for metal-free pseudocapacitors

Abstract

The development of potent pseudocapacitive charge storage materials has emerged as an effective solution for closing the gap between high-energy density batteries and high-power density and long-lasting electrical double-layer capacitors. Sulfonyl compounds are ideal candidates owing to their rapid and reversible redox reactions. However, structural instability and low electrical conductivity hinder their practical application as electrode materials. This work addresses these challenges using a fast and clean laser process to interconnect sulfonated carbon nanodots into functionalized porous carbon frameworks. In this bottom-up approach, the resulting laser-converted three-dimensional (3D) turbostratic carbon foams serve as high-surface-area, conductive scaffolds for redox-active sulfonyl groups. This design enables efficient faradaic processes using pendant sulfonyl groups, leading to a high specific capacitance of 157.6 F g⁻¹ due to the fast reversible redox reactions of sulfonyl moieties. Even at 20 A g⁻¹, the capacitance remained at 78.4% due to the uniform distribution of redox-active sites on the graphitic domains. Additionally, the 3D-tsSC300 electrode showed remarkable cycling stability of >15 000 cycles. The dominant capacitive processes and kinetics were analysed using extensive electrochemical characterizations. Furthermore, we successfully used 3D-tsSC300 in flexible solid-state supercapacitors, achieving a high specific capacitance of up to 17.4 mF cm⁻² and retaining 91.6% of the initial capacitance after 20 000 cycles of charge and discharge coupled with 90° bending tests. Additionally, an as-assembled flexible all-solid-state symmetric supercapacitor exhibits a high energy density of 12.6 mW h cm⁻³ at a high power density of 766.2 W cm⁻³, both normalized by the volumes of the full device, which is comparable or better than state-of-the-art commercial pseudocapacitors and hybrid capacitors. The integrated supercapacitor provides a wide potential window of 2.0 V using a serial circuit, showing great promise for metal-free energy storage devices.