Ultrafast Porous Carbon Activation Promises High-Energy Density Supercapacitors

Activated porous carbons (APCs) are traditionally produced by heat treatment and KOH activation, where the production time can be as long as 2 h, and the produced activated porous carbons suffer from relatively low specific surface area and porosity. In this study, the fast high-temperature shock (HTS) carbonization and HTS-KOH activation method to synthesize activated porous carbons with high specific surface area of approximate to 843 m(2) g(-1), is proposed. During the HTS process, the instant Joule heating (at a heating speed of approximate to 1100 K s(-1)) with high temperature and rapid quenching can effectively produce abundant pores with homogeneous size-distribution due to the instant melt of KOH into small droplets, which facilitates the interaction between carbon and KOH to form controllable, dense, and small pores. The as-prepared HTS-APC-based supercapacitors deliver a high energy density of 25 Wh kg(-1) at a power density of 582 W kg(-1) in the EMIMBF4 ionic liquid. It is believed that the proposed HTS technique has created a new pathway for manufacturing activated porous carbons with largely enhanced energy density of supercapacitors, which can inspire the development of energy storage materials.

Automated summary

In this study, a fast high-temperature shock carbonization and activation method was proposed to synthesize activated porous carbons with high specific surface area. The as-prepared supercapacitors based on this method exhibited a high energy density.