Synthesis of N-Doped Hollow-Structured Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres for High-Performance Supercapacitors

We have demonstrated a facile and controllable synthesis of monodispersed N-doped hollow mesoporous carbon nanospheres (N-HMCSs) and yolk-shell hollow mesoporous carbon nanospheres (N-YSHMCSs) by a modified silica-assisted route. The synthesis process can be carried out by using resorcinol-formaldehyde resin as a carbon precursor, melamine as a nitrogen source, hexadecyl trimethylammonium chloride as a template, and silicate oligomers as structure supporter. The morphological (i.e., particle size, shell thickness, cavity size, and core diameter) and textural features of the carbon nanospheres are easily controlled by varying the amount of ammonium. The resultant carbon nanospheres possess high surface areas (up to 2464 m(2) g(-1)), large pore volumes (up to 2.36 cm(3) g(-1)), and uniform mesopore size (similar to 2.4 nm for N-HMCSs, similar to 4.5 nm for N-YSHMCSs). Through combining the hollow mesoporous structure, high porosity, large surface area, and N heteroatomic functionality, the as-synthesized N-doped hollow-structured carbon nanospheres manifest excellent supercapacitor performance with high capacitance (up to 240 F/g), favorable capacitance retention (97.0% capacitive retention after 5000 cycles), and high energy density (up to 11.1 Wh kg(-1)).