Novel activated N-doped hollow microporous carbon nanospheres from pyrrole-based hyper-crosslinking polystyrene for supercapacitors

Publication date: Available online 16 July 2019Source: Reactive and Functional PolymersAuthor(s): Tianqi Wang, Yang Xu, Buyin Shi, Shengguang Gao, Guojie Meng, Kun HuangAbstractHere, pyrrole-based hollow microporous organic nanospheres (Py-HMONs) were firstly synthesized through co-hyper-cross-linking of pyrrole and polylactide-b-polystyrene (PLA-b-PS) diblock copolymers based on Scholl reaction. The effect of diblock copolymers and pyrrole amount on the morphology of Py-HMONs was discussed. Py-HMONs can be further transformed into activated N-doped hollow microporous carbon nanospheres (AN-HMCNs) with enhanced high surface area (1347 m2 g−1) by a simply KOH-activated pyrolyzing treatment. Owing to high surface area, unique hollow spherical structure and nitrogen heteratom doping, the obtained AN-HMCNs as supercapacitor electrodes deliver a high specific capacitance of 395 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1. More remarkably, AN-HMCNs electrodes exhibit outstanding cycling stability with almost no decrease over 5000 cycles at a current density of 10 A g−1. This work provide a new avenue to prepare activated hollow porous carbon nanospheres with high surface area and nitrogen-doping for high-performance supercapacitor applications.Graphical abstractThe activated N-doped hollow porous carbon nanospheres (AN-HMCNs) were successfully synthesized using polylactide-b-polystyrene diblock copolymers (PLA-b-PS) and pyrrole monomer as precursors by combining hyper-c...
Source: Reactive and Functional Polymers - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research