Heteroatom-Containing Porous Carbons Derived from Ionic Liquid-Doped Alkali Organic Salts for Supercapacitors

A simple strategy for the synthesis of heteroatom-doped porous carbon materials (CMs) via using ionic liquid (IL)-doped alkali organic salts as small molecular precursors is developed. Doping of alkali organic salts (such as sodium glutamate, sodium tartrate, and sodium citrate) with heteroatoms containing ILs (including 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chlorine and 3-butyl-4-methythiazolebromination) not only incorporates the heteroatoms into the carbon frameworks but also highly improves the carbonization yield, as compared with that of either alkali organic salts or ILs as precursors. The porous structure of CMs can be tuned by adjusting the feed ratio of ILs. The porous CMs derived from 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chlorine-doped sodium glutamate exhibit high charge storage capacity with a specific capacitance of 287 F g(-1) and good stability over 5000 cycles in 6 m KOH at a current density of 1 A g(-1) for supercapacitors. This strategy opens a simple and efficient method for the synthesis of heteroatom-doped porous CMs.