One-pot facile route to fabricate the precursor of sulfonated graphene/N-doped mesoporous carbons composites for supercapacitors

A facile one-pot aqueous route is firstly proposed to fabricate the precursor of sulfonated graphene/N-doped mesoporous carbons composite (SG/NMC). SG/NMC for supercapacitor applications is subsequently obtained by thermal pyrolysis of this precursor. The obtained SG/NMC possesses the ordered mesostructures with both lattice unit parameter about 14.3 nm and much wider distributions of pore sizes, as well as delivers a specific surface area high up to 1039.65 m2 g−1. Likewise, SG/NMC exhibits a high specific capacitance about 304.2 F g−1 at 1.0 A g−1, which is much higher than ordered mesoporous carbons (OMC, 128.9 F g−1) and N-doped mesoporous carbons (NMC, 223.3 F g−1). Moreover, the resultant carbon displays a capacitance of 209.2 F g−1 at a current density even up to 50 A g−1 and the capacity can be retained above 93% after 5000 cycles at 10 A g−1. The strategy demonstrated here is therefore expected to open up new routes to fabricate graphene and mesoporous carbons composites in aqueous solutions for supercapacitor applications.