Facile Self-Template Synthesis of a Nitrogen-Rich Nanoporous Carbon Wire and Its Application for Energy Storage Devices

Heteroatom doping, pore engineering, and morphology design are efficient strategies to develop a high-performance electrode material for supercapacitors. In the periodic table of the elements, nitrogen is adjacent to carbon and their atomic radii are close to each other; therefore, the doping of nitrogen atoms can cause the lattice of the carbon material to be substantially distorted. In this study, a facile one-step self-template strategy for synthesizing a highly nitrogen-doped nanoporous carbon wire (denoted as HNPCW) of ∼100 nm diameter and ∼10 μm length is successfully developed. Depending on rational design and the control of reaction conditions, the highest surface area reaches 2149 m2 g–1, and the nitrogen content exceeds 16.8%. It is worth noting that the morphology of the materials varies as the contents of nitrogen change. The optimal HNPCW possesses a high specific capacitance of 587.8 F g–1 at 1 A g–1 in a three-electrode system, 118.9 F g–1 at 0.5 A g–1 in a two-electrode system, and excellent cycle stability (97.79% after 10 000 cycles at 5 A g–1). Even at a high specific power of 30.0 kW kg–1, the specific energy reaches 27.1 Wh kg–1, portraying great potential to be an ideal candidate for practical supercapacitors.