• Carbon letters
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• v.23
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• pp.9-16
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• 2017

This paper introduces a nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbon (NOMC) derived from glucosamine with hybrid capacitive behaviors, achieved by successfully combining electrical double-layer capacitance with pseudo-capacitance behaviors. The nitrogen doping content of the fabricated NOMC reached 7.4 at% while its specific surface area ($S_{BET}$) and total pore volume reached $778m^2g^{-1}$ and $1.17cm^3g^{-1}$, respectively. A dual mesoporous structure with small mesopores centered at 3.6 nm and large mesopores centered at 9.9 nm was observed. The specific capacitance of the reported materials reached up to $328Fg^{-1}$, which was 2.1 times higher than that of pristine CMK-3. The capacitance retention rate was found to be higher than 87.9% after 1000 charge/discharge cycles. The supplementary pseudocapacitance as well as the enhanced wettability and conductivity due to the incorporation of nitrogen heteroatoms within the carbon matrixes were found to be responsible for the excellent capacitive performance of the reported NOMC materials.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.338-343
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• 2017

Activated carbon has lower electrical conductivity and reliability than other carbonaceous materials because of the oxygen functional groups that form during the activation process. This problem can be overcome by doping the material with heteroatoms to reduce the number of oxygen functional groups. In the present study, N, F co-doped activated carbon (AC-NF) was successfully prepared by a microwave-assisted hydrothermal method, utilizing commercial activated carbon (AC-R) as the precursor and ammonium tetrafluoroborate as the single source for the co-doping of N and F. AC-NF showed improved electrical conductivity ($3.8\;S\;cm^{-1}$) with N and F contents of 0.6 and 0.1 at%, respectively. The introduction of N and F improved the performance of the pertinent supercapacitor: AC-NF exhibited an improved rate capability at current densities of $0.5-50mA\;cm^{-2}$. The rate capability was higher compared to that of raw activated carbon because N and F codoping increased the electrical conductivity of AC-NF. The developed method for the co-doping of N and F using a single source is cost-effective and yields AC-NF with excellent electrochemical properties; thus, it has promising applications in the commercialization of energy storage devices.