Molten salt assisted self-activated carbon with controllable architecture for aqueous supercapacitor

Activated carbons have been widely employed as electrode materials of aqueous supercapacitors but the use of hazardous and corrosive activating agents challenges conventional activation procedures.Here,using a unique molten salt assisted self-activation technique,we have devised an eco-friendly and simple method to synthesize oxygen-rich hierarchical porous carbon with controllable architecture.Mixture of sodium carboxymethylcellulose and NaCl was pyrolyzed in one step,creating in-situ produced Na_(2)CO_(3)-NaCl molten salt that carried out the activation work.Na2 CO3 acts as the activating agent in the reaction media of NaCl during the self-activation process.The obtained carbon exhibited a remarkable specific capacitance of 278 F g^(−1) at 0.5 A g^(−1) and retained 76%capacitance at 50 A g^(−1) in a three-electrode cell.The fabricated aqueous coin cell achieved 81%capacitance retention at 50 A g^(−1) and the highest specific energy density of 12.8 Wh kg^(−1) at 214.6 W kg^(−1),which are superior compared to the commercial activated carbon(64%at 50 A g^(−1) and 8.4 Wh kg^(−1) at 194.8 W kg^(−1)).Moreover,capacitance fading was not observed after 10000 cycles at 5 A g^(−1).Considering the species diversity and low cost of self-salt polymers on the market,this strategy will expect to become a scalable approach for synthesizing high-performance capacitive carbons.