Litchi-like porous carbon nanospheres prepared from crosslinked polymer precursors for supercapacitors and electromagnetic wave absorption

Porous carbon nanospheres are considered potential multifunctional material candidates for supercapacitors and electromagnetic wave absorption due to their special chemical and physical properties. In this article, N, O-doped litchi-like porous carbon nanospheres (LPCNs) were originally synthesized through temperature controllable engineering. The ultrahigh specific surface area reached 2666.7 m2 g-1 due to their rich pore structure. The optimal electrode specific capacitance reached 448.5 F g-1 at a current density of 0.5 A g-1 and 220 F g-1 at a current density of 10 A g-1. Notably, the electrode exhibited a remarkable cycling performance of 93 % retention rate after 10,000 cycles at 10 A g-1. Furthermore, the LPCNs/zinc acrylate resin (ZAR) composite coating exhibited excellent electromagnetic wave absorption properties. The minimum reflection loss (RLmin) value reached -47.39 dB at 2.5 mm, and the effective bandwidth covered the entire band (18?40 GHz) at a thickness > 3.0 mm. This material is expected to be an outstanding supercapacitor electrode material and electromagnetic absorption material due to its high specific capacitance, high reflection loss, and wide absorption, which can improve the utilization rate of materials and provide a new method for the development and application of multifunctional materials.

Automated summary

N, O-doped litchi-like porous carbon nanospheres (LPCNs) with ultrahigh specific surface area and excellent capacitance performance were successfully synthesized in this study. The electrode exhibited remarkable cycling performance and the LPCNs/ZAR composite coating showed outstanding electromagnetic wave absorption properties, indicating the potential of LPCNs as multifunctional material candidates.