Nitrogen- and oxygen-rich dual-decorated carbon materials with porosity for high-performance supercapacitors

A series of N/O co-doping porous carbon materials are fabricated from benzotriazole as nitrogen-containing precursor through simple chemical activation (phosphoric acid as activator) and thermolysis process under nitrogen atmosphere. Abundant heteroatoms or functional groups (O: 11.4 at.%; N: 6.5 at.%) in the N/O-3-700 sample can improve the overall electrochemical performance of the material, which is because they can enhance physicochemical properties and induce the pronounced pseudocapacitance. In three-electrode system, the resultant product (N/O-3-700) has a highest specific capacitance value of 357.8 F g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 and good cycle stability (remains more than 94% after 10000 at 1 A g−1), which are attributed to large specific area (1337.7 m2 g−1) and proper functional groups (the sum of N-5 and N-6 content: 42.2 at.%; quinone: 14.3 at.%, C=O and/or COOH: 16.0 at.%). And in symmetric two-electrode cell, the N/O-3-700//N/O-3-700 cell possesses highest energy density of 17.80 Wh kg−1 at 1 A g−1 and still has a high energy density (12.51 Wh kg−1) at 10 A g−1. Thus, the N/O-doped porous carbon can be used for supercapacitors.