Electrochemically Active Nitrogen-Enriched Nanocarbons with Well-Defined Morphology Synthesized by Pyrolysis of Self-Assembled Block Copolymer

Abstract

Novel nanoporous nitrogen-enriched carbon materials were prepared through a simple carbonization procedure of well-defined block copolymer precursors containing the source of carbon, i.e., polyacrylonitrile (PAN), and a sacrificial block, i.e., poly(n-butyl acrylate) (PBA). The preparation of nitrogen-enriched nanocarbons with hierarchical pore structure was enabled by the high fidelity preservation of the initial phase-separated nanostructure between two polymer blocks upon carbonization. Supercapacitors fabricated from the prepared carbons exhibited unusually high capacitance per unit surface area (>30 μF/cm(2)) which was attributed to the pseudocapacitance resulting from the high nitrogen content originating from the PAN precursor. Electrochemical availability of the nitrogen species was also evident from the results of oxygen reduction experiments. The hierarchical pore structure and the high nitrogen content in such materials make them particularly promising for use in supercapacitor and electrocatalyst applications.

Renewable and metal-free carbon nanofibre catalysts for carbon dioxide reduction

“…about 400 and 284 eV correspond to the N1s and C1s, respectively ( Supplementary Fig. S1) 25 . The existence of N1s confirms the presence of nitrogen atoms even if CNFs were pyrolysed at 1,050°C in Argon media.…”

High content of pyridinic- and pyrrolic-nitrogen-modified carbon nanotubes derived from blood biomass for the electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline medium

“…Pyrolysis of biomass is recognized as a feasible and efficient process to selectively produce novel nitrogen-doped electrocatalyst. Several previous researches have proved the superiority in direct fabrication of non-precious-metal catalysts [17][18][19][20][21][22]. Notably, blood protein contained from animals in meat industry has raised concern in recent years.…”

Oligomer-salt derived 3D, heavily nitrogen doped, porous carbon for Li-ion hybrid electrochemical capacitors application

“…capacitive material. Zhong et al [19] synthesized nanoporous carbon from the co-polymer of polyacrylonitrile and a sacrificial block, poly (n-butyl acrylate), wherein a high pseudo-capacitance was observed due to a large N dopant concentration in the carbon. A novel strategy for obtaining 3D porous carbon from alkali metal salts of commercially available polymers: polymer poly(4-styrenesulfonic acidco-maleic acid) sodium salt and poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) potassium salt was successfully adopted by Yadav et al [20] and Puthusseri et al [21,22] respectively.…”