Introducing organic metallic salts to enhance capacitive energy storage of carbon nanofibers

Abstract

A suitable form of precursor carbon is a great importance for electrochemical performance of carbon materials for supercapacitor applications. Herein, we investigate the addition of organic bimetallic salts to polymer precursor for the fabrication of carbon nanofiber (CNF). The presence of additional pore structures is beneficial for transfer of electrolytes by providing more active sites and improving electrochemical performance. Compared with the samples without any metallic salts, the activated electrode shows a high specific surface area of 420 m(2) g(-1) and outstanding specific capacitance of 460 F g(-1) at 1 A g(-1). The capacitance retention shows that it retains 95.6% of initial capacitance up to 1000 cycles and 76.5% even after 9000 cycles. A high specific energy of 16 Wh kg(-1) at 250 W kg(-1) is also obtained. This strategy holds a great promise for use in energy-related applications.