High surface area carbon from polyacrylonitrile for high-performance electrochemical capacitive energy storage

High surface area carbon with a surface area of 3550 m(2) g(-1) is synthesized via a low-cost, scalable process from polyacrylonitrile. The composite electrodes consisting of high surface area carbon and carbon nanotubes delivered a high capacitance of similar to 174 F g(-1) in symmetric configurations, and a high capacity of similar to 150 mA h g(-1) in asymmetric configurations against lithium metal with excellent rate performance at practical mass loading and bulk densities.