Activated pyrene decorated graphene with enhanced performance for electrochemical energy storage

Developing graphene based supercapacitor electrodes with enhanced performance are critical to their future energy storage devices. In this study, well-controlled pyrene decorated graphene composites (PGCs) are synthesized via a facile solvothermal and subsequent activated route. It has demonstrated that the optimized PGCs electrode exhibits 310.7 F g(-1) at the current density of 1.5 A g(-1) and an excellent cycle stability with a capacitance retention of 99% after 15,000 cycles. Furthermore, an asymmetric supercapacitor fabricated with the PGC(3) (the mass ratio of pyrene to grapheme is 3:1) as the positive electrode and graphene as the negative electrode exhibit high power density, high energy density and long cycling life span. These results demonstrate that the pyrene decorated graphene electrode provides greatly enhanced electrochemical performance and shows promising application as anode for energy storage.