Hierarchical Nanoporous Carbon Templated and Catalyzed by the Bicontinuous Nanoporous Copper for High Performance Electrochemical Capacitors

To enhance the performance of electrochemical capacitor, the nanostructured carbon materials with large surface area, appropriate pore distributions, suitable electronic conductivity and perfect chemical stability are pursued. Herein, the highly graphitized hierarchical porous carbon with well-defined porosity are fabricated. For the first time, the novel bicontinuous nanoporous copper is used as both the template and the catalyst to synthesize the porous carbon materials. The as-prepared porous carbon demonstrates a high specific surface area of 1826 m² g⁻¹ benefitting from the bicontinuous nanoporous copper template and KOH activation. By electrochemical test, the nanoporous carbon material displays a specific capacitance of 210 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 0.2 A g⁻¹ within 6 M KOH aqueous solution. The material demonstrates excellent cycling stability with a 95.4% capacity retention for 10 000 cycles with a current density of 1 A g⁻¹. The present work provides a facile approach for fabrication of carbon-based electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors.