Nitrogen enriched mesoporous carbon spheres obtained by a facile method and its application for electrochemical capacitor

A kind of mesoporous carbon spheres (MCS) containing in-frame incorporated nitrogen has been prepared by a facile polymerization-induced colloid aggregation method. As the electrode material for electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) in 5 mol/L H2SO4, the MCS products present excellent specific capacitance as 211 F/g much larger than that of the most popularly applied activated carbon at a high discharge current density of I A/g. Its specific capacitance can still remain 200 F/g at 20 A/g. The superior electrochemical performance of MCS is associated with the following characteristics: high specific surface area (similar to 1330 m(2)/g) contributed mainly by the mesopores, uniform pore size as large as 29 urn and moderate content of nitrogen (10 wt%), which are the requirements for ideal supercapacitors. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.