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Facile construction of hierarchically porous carbon nanofiber aerogel for high-performance supercapacitor

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Abstract

Nanofibrillated cellulose with the features of nano-scale fibers and self-assembly has attracted significant attention to acquire porous structure for low-cost and high-performance electrode materials. Here, a carbon nanofiber aerogel was prepared by self-assembling the building-blocks of nanofibrillated cellulose into controlled macro and mesoporous structure. A typical activation was further applied to engineer abundant micropores, which led to narrowed carbon walls as well as improved surface area (1726 m2 g−1). Due to the facile-constructed hierarchical pore structure and large ion-accessible surface area, the resultant carbon aerogel exhibited comparable performance to reported electrodes from porous bio-carbons. It displayed a high specific capacitance of 169 F g−1 at a high current of 20 A g−1, retaining 73% of that at 0.2 A g−1 (231 F g−1). Furthermore, the symmetric supercapacitor showed a high capacitance retention during the long-term charge–discharge. This work provides a facile and renewable way to develop hierarchical porous bio-carbons with high charge storage capability.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0600804).

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Author notes

  1. Xi Yang and Lingyu Kong have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410004, China

    Xi Yang

  2. Department of Biomaterials, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan, No.8, Futong Eastern Street, Wangjing Area, Beijing, China

    Lingyu Kong, Jianfeng Ma & Xinge Liu

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  1. Xi Yang
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  2. Lingyu Kong
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Correspondence to Xinge Liu.

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Yang, X., Kong, L., Ma, J. et al. Facile construction of hierarchically porous carbon nanofiber aerogel for high-performance supercapacitor. J Appl Electrochem 49, 241–250 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-018-1270-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-018-1270-7

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