Facile Synthesis of Porous Carbon Via Self-Activation of Potassium Acetate for High-Performance Supercapacitor Electrodes with Excellent Cyclic Stability

The capacitance of an electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) is largely determined by the surface area and the electrical conductivity of the electrode material. To enhance the performance of EDLCs, a separate activation procedure is commonly used to increase the porosity of the electrode. A facile and scalable method of producing highly porous carbon electrodes for high-performance supercapacitors without a separate activation procedure via simple thermal treatment of potassium acetate is reported. Potassium acetate-derived carbon (PAC) exhibits a high specific surface area of 1704m(2)g(-1) and superior electrical conductivity of 22950Scm(-1) without further treatment. When used for EDLC electrodes, PAC displays a high specific capacitance of 195Fg(-1) at 0.5Ag(-1) and excellent cyclic stability with capacitance retention of 99.0% over 80000 charge/discharge cycles. Carbonization and simultaneous self-activation of PAC demonstrates a facile and efficient method of producing carbon electrodes with a high surface area without an additional activation procedure, which provides an efficient solution for producing high-performance supercapacitor electrodes at low cost.