Nanoporous carbon hybrids derived from polymethylsilsequioxane for ultracapacitor electrodes

A nanoporous carbon hybrid with high specific surface area (SSA) and pore volume was processed in a novel two-step approach using nanocarbon and a commercial preceramic polymer. First, nanocarbon was coated with a methylsilsesquioxane based preceramic polymer, crosslinked, and pyrolyzed to obtain silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) coated nanocarbon hybrid. Further, selective etching of the SiO2 nanodomains from the SiOC coating in the ceramic-carbon hybrid resulted a nanoporous carbon materials with excellent SSA of 1400 m(2) g(-1), and pore size distribution in the range of 1-4 nm. Preliminary investigations on the synthesized carbon hybrid with cyclic voltammetry exhibited typical rectangular voltammogram without any faradaic contribution, and high specific capacitance of 227 F g(-1) at a scan rate of 20 mV s(-1).