Understanding the Roles of Sulfur Doping for Enhancing of Hydrophilicity and Electrochemical Performance of N,S-Codoped Hierarchically Porous Carbon

A hydrophilic N,S-codoped hierarchically porous carbon (NSHPC) was fabricated successfully through a green route, which is through activation of bagasse with thiourea using calcium chloride as activation agent by a one-step process. The as-prepared N,S-codoped carbon with hierarchically porosities can offer merits for ion buffering and storage, and moreover, the doped nitrogen and sulfur in this sample can significantly enhance the hydrophilicity/wettability and pseudocapacitance. Thus, the as-prepared NSHPC material with a moderated specific surface area (SSA, 835.9 m2 g–1) and pore volume (0.68 cm3 g–1), achieving from calcination the raw sources of bagasse, CaCl2, and thiourea in a mass ratio of 1:2:2 at 800 °C for 2 h under an inert flow, can exhibit a high mass specific capacitance and areal-normalized capacitance (349.0/41.6, 282.5/33.8, and 203.8/24.3 F g–1/μF cm–2 at 1.0 A g–1 in 6.0 M KOH, 1.0 M H2SO4, and Li2SO4, respectively), superior rate performance (222.0, 152.0, and 98.8 F g–1 at 100 A g–1 in 6.0 M KOH, 1.0 M H2SO4 and Li2SO4, respectively), and outstanding cycle stability. Moreover, a symmetric capacitor fabricated by the NSHPC material shows high energy and good power densities (with respective 21.7 and 14.4 Wh kg–1 at 0.4 and 4.0 kW kg–1) in 1.0 M Li2SO4 electrolyte. Also, this as-assembled device displays excellent cycle performance (with no capacitance fading after 10 000 cycles at 10.0 A g–1). Compared with the electrochemical performance of the as-prepared NSHPC sample and the previously synthesized N-doped porous carbon and activation carbon with similar SSA and pore volume, it is suggested that the S-doping in the NSHPC sample plays a positive role in enhancing its rate performance for supercapacitors originated from its incremental hydrophilicity and rich heteroatom content.