Incorporation of Graphitic Porous Carbon for Synthesis of Composite Carbon Aerogel with Enhanced Electrochemical Performance

We report, synthesis of high surface area composite carbon aerogel using additive based polymerization technique by incorporating graphitic porous carbon as additive. This additive was separately prepared using sol-gel polymerization of resorcinol-furfuraldehyde in iso-propyl alcohol medium at much above the routine gelation temperature to yield porous carbon (CA-IPA) having graphitic layered morphology. CA-IPA exhibited a unique combination of meso-pore dominated surface area (similar to 700 m(2)/g) and good conductivity of similar to 300 S/m. The composite carbon aerogel (CCA) was synthesized by traditional aqueous medium based resorcinol-formaldehyde gelation with CA-IPA as additive. The presence of CA-IPA favored enhanced meso-porosity as well as contributed to improvement in bulk conductivity. Based on the surface area characteristics, CCA-8 composition having 8% additive was found to be optimum. It showed specific surface area of similar to 2056 m(2)/g, mesopore area of 827 m(2)/g and electrical conductivity of 180 S/m. The electrode formed with CCA-8 showed improved electrochemical behavior, with specific capacitance of 148 F/g & ESR < 1 Omega, making it a better choice as super capacitor for energy storage applications.