Surface Modified Carbon Cloth via Nitrogen Plasma for Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

Carbon cloth (CC) is a basic component for various electrochemical applications including supercapacitors, batteries, and catalysts. However, the hydrophobic nature and poor compatibility of CC with electrolyte ions remain an issue. In the present work, we developed a simple yet effective nitrogen plasma approach to induce nanostructuring over the CC, thereby significantly increasing the wettability and surface area of the CC, which both favor robust electrochemical reactions. In addition to this, nitrogen doping on the surface of the CC allowed more electroactive species for electrochemical reactions. Benefiting from these integrated merits, the plasma-treated nitrogen-doped CC (NCC) shows excellent supercapacitive features including an areal capacitance of 741 mF/cm 2 , which is much higher than that of the bare CC. Moreover, the NCC shows excellent cycling stability over 5000 charge-discharge cycles without losing its initial capacitance. The presented approach provides an innovative route to design and develop highly efficient carbon-based electrodes for supercapacitor applications. The irregularity of renewable energy resources induced by environmental pollution and global warming has driven the development of efficient and pollution-free energy-generating and storage devices.1-3 Among the different available technologies, the production of hydrogen via the electrocatalysis of water and storing electricity in electrochemical energy storage devices are promising approaches. 4-9The critical factor for such devices is the design and development of advanced electrode materials and electrolytes using cost-effective techniques. In previous research, various electroactive materials and electrolytes have been utilized to enhance the electrochemical performance of energy-generating and -storing devices. Current collectors are also important in determining the overall electrochemical performance of such devices, but current collectors are rarely explored in existing literature toward enhancing the electrochemical performance of devices.10 Typically, metal-based current collectors like stainless steel (SS), nickel foam, and plates of copper and titanium are used for electrochemical devices because they offer high electrical conductivity and ductility. Despite this advantage, the bulky and heavy nature of metallic current collectors limit their large-scale application. Moreover, the corrosion of metal-based current collectors in liquid electrolytes constrained the working lifetimes of metal-based electrochemical devices. From a practical perspective, high areal and volumetric electrochemical performances (like the areal capacitance) are very important. For metal-based current collectors, achieving the desired area-or volumenormalized electrochemical performance requires larger current collectors, thereby lowering the weight-normalized electrochemical performance in the final product.Carbon-based current collectors such as carbon cloth (CC) and graphite paper have numerous advantages over metal-based current collectors,...

Two‐Dimensional Materials for High‐Energy Solid‐State Asymmetric Pseudocapacitors with High Mass Loadings

“…Furthermore, the highly conducting CF network would provide an expressway for efficient electron transportw ithoutr equiring ac onducting additive. [18] In addition, the chemical inertness of the CF current collector is suitable for obtaining long-term electrochemical stability.T he conventional single-step and low-cost binderless hydrothermalp rocess was used to prepare the high-massloadedn anosheet-based MnO 2 @CF and MoS 2 @CF electrodes. The hydrothermalp rocessi sw ell known fori ts feasible nature and is used for preparing chemical compoundsa nd materials with different structures or nanostructures on various substrates in ac losed system above at emperature of 100 8C.…”

Carbon Cloth‐based Hybrid Materials as Flexible Electrochemical Supercapacitors

“…It was observed that elemental doping not only improves the ion diffusion in carbon cloths but also reduces the voltage hysteresis loss during charge/discharge. Thus doping can be thought to be more advantageous for improving energy storage in carbon cloths and it was evident from recently reported nitrogen‐doped carbon cloths where doping was carried out via simple and facile nitrogen plasma approach . The caused the formation of fine and uniform nanoparticles like structure over carbon microfiber due to high power nitrogen plasma treatment of pristine carbon cloths.…”

“…Thus doping can be thought to be more advantageous for improving energy storage in carbon cloths and it was evident from recently reported nitrogen-doped carbon cloths where doping was carried out via simple and facile nitrogen plasma approach. [107] The caused the formation of fine and uniform nanoparticles like structure over carbon microfiber due to high power nitrogen plasma treatment of pristine carbon cloths. The nitrogen heteroatom creates the positive charge centers in carbon materials which make it easy for accepting of electrons and to enhance the resultant electrical conductivity.…”

Optimizing the micropore-to-mesopore ratio of carbon-fiber-cloth creates record-high specific capacitance

“…EDLC is originated from the electric double layer between electrode and electrolyte, in the form of both inner and outer surfaces of active materials [5][6][7] . Thus, expanding the specific surface area (SSA) of CFCs may be constructive to boost the specific capacitance and address the low energy density issues [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] . Nevertheless, no clear correlation between the specific capacitance and SSA has been found and the capacitance enhancement is still challenging [9] .…”