Biomass derived nitrogen doped carbon with porous architecture as efficient electrode materials for supercapacitors

Developing porous carbon materials with low-cost, sustainable and eco-friendly natural resources is emerging as an ever important research field in the application of high-performance supercapacitor. In this paper, a simple synthetic method to fabricate nitrogen doped porous carbon (NPC) is developed via a one-pot carbonization of sodium alginate and urea. The as-prepared NPC annealed at 700 degrees C with mesoand macro-porous structure exhibits excellent specific capacitance (180.2 F/g at 1 A/g) and superior cycling life when serves as electrode materials for supercapacitor. Moreover, the investigation on the annealing temperature demonstrates that NPC pyrolysis at 700 degrees C possesses relatively high pyrrole nitrogen and pyridine nitrogen, which is favorable for enhancing supercapacitor performance. This work extends biomass derived carbon materials in energy storage applications. (C) 2017 Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.