Rationally assembled porous carbon superstructures for advanced supercapacitors

Rationally designing three-dimensional complex carbon superstructures for energy storage applications offers opportunities to tackle challenges driven by increasingly higher demand of portable energy devices. Herein we report in-situ controlled constructibility and ex-situ confined assembly strategies to enable novel raspberry-like carbon superstructures (RCSSs) for the enhancement of advanced supercapacitors. Through precise control of edge-to-surface ratio and optimization of inner pore structure, the resultant RCSSs show three-dimensional hierarchical porous framework, large specific surface area (SSA, similar to 1000 m(2) g(-1)) and high electrical conductivity (similar to 2700 S m(-1)), which facilitate ion diffusion and electron transfer. The predesigned RCSSs used as the electrode materials in symmetrical supercapacitors exhibit high rate capability, as indicated by 25,000% increment of the current density only leading to low capacitance degradation of 11.7%, and show long-term cycling stability (98.3% retention after 10,000 cycles) in 6M KOH electrolyte. Moreover, the RCSSs simultaneously deliver high energy density of 46.5 Wh kg(-1) and high power density of 52.5 kW kg(-1) in ionic liquid electrolytes. We believe that the combination of in-situ and ex-situ approaches yielded carbon superstructures with complex microstructure and outstanding electrical properties show promising application for universally advanced energy devices with superior power and energy characteristics.