Nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon of extraordinary capacitance for electrochemical energy storage

Tianquan Lin; I-Wei Chen; Fengxin Liu; Chongyin Yang; Hui Bi; Fangfang Xu; Fuqiang Huang

doi:10.1126/science.aab3798

Nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon of extraordinary capacitance for electrochemical energy storage

Science. 2015 Dec 18;350(6267):1508-13. doi: 10.1126/science.aab3798.

Authors

Tianquan Lin¹, I-Wei Chen², Fengxin Liu³, Chongyin Yang³, Hui Bi³, Fangfang Xu³, Fuqiang Huang⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure and CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, P.R. China. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P.R. China.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
³ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure and CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure and CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, P.R. China. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P.R. China. huangfq@mail.sic.ac.cn.

PMID: 26680194
DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3798

Abstract

Carbon-based supercapacitors can provide high electrical power, but they do not have sufficient energy density to directly compete with batteries. We found that a nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous few-layer carbon has a capacitance of 855 farads per gram in aqueous electrolytes and can be bipolarly charged or discharged at a fast, carbon-like speed. The improvement mostly stems from robust redox reactions at nitrogen-associated defects that transform inert graphene-like layered carbon into an electrochemically active substance without affecting its electric conductivity. These bipolar aqueous-electrolyte electrochemical cells offer power densities and lifetimes similar to those of carbon-based supercapacitors and can store a specific energy of 41 watt-hours per kilogram (19.5 watt-hours per liter).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.