Distinctive Construction of Chitin-Derived Hierarchically Porous Carbon Microspheres/Polyaniline for High-Rate Supercapacitors

Abstract

Recently, nanostructured porous carbons are attracting significant interest in various important applications. However, a green and innovative method to fabricate hierarchically porous-structured carbon is still a challenge. In the present work, hierarchically porous carbon microspheres (HCMs) were prepared by pyrolyzing the chitin microspheres fabricated from a chitin/chitosan blend solution, in which chitosan was used as a forming agent of nanopores/nanochannels to construct the microspheres. The HCM displayed hierarchical porous structure and improved specific surface area of 1450 m²/g. For the application of HCM in hybrid electrode materials as supercapacitors, polyaniline (PANI) nanoclusters were further deposited on the surface of HCM. A symmetric supercapacitor based on HCM-PANI exhibited high rate capability with retaining over 64% of the capacitance as the scan rate increased from 2 to 500 mV/s. This work introduced a distinctive and green method to fabricate hierarchically porous carbon materials, having considerable application prospect for energy storage.

Keywords: carbon microspheres; chitin/chitosan; hierarchical porosity; high specific surface area; high-rate supercapacitors.