Nitrogen and sulfur co-doped nanoporous carbon material derived from p-nitrobenzenamine within several minutes and the supercapacitor application

Nanoporous carbon materials co-doped with both nitrogen and sulfur have been synthesized via a sulfuric acid-assisted straightforward carbonization method, in which p-nitrobenzenamine serves as both carbon and nitrogen source, whereas sulfuric acid as sulfur source and catalyst. It is revealed that the nanoporous carbon material named as carbon-RT takes on amorphous features with low crystallinity. More importantly, it possesses high nitrogen content (15.95%) and sulfur content (3.36%) in carbon matrix. And the synthesis time is so short that the carbon-RT sample could be obtained within just a few minutes. To improve the electrochemical performance of material, the carbon-RT sample has been further heated at 800 degrees C, resulting in the carbon-800 sample. As a result, it has delivered a high specific capacitance of 73 F g(-1) at the current density of 1 A g(-1) when measured in a three-electrode system, using 6 mol L-1 KOH as electrolyte. The present synthesis method has been conveniently implemented to produce nanoporous carbon materials co-doped with high content of nitrogen and sulfur, using inexpensive starting materials, thereby it has broad prospects and potentials for producing carbon materials in a simple and scalable manner. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.