Commercialized Benzoxazine Resin-Derived Porous Carbon as high Performance Electrode Materials for Supercapacitor

A novel porous carbon C–(BA-a) has been simply synthesized from a commercialized benzoxazine resin (BA-a) using a soft-templating method. The chemical structure of BA-a has been confirmed by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and its polymerization behavior is monitored by in situ FT-IR and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). In order to increase the active site of surface electrochemical reactions and promote the wettability in aqueous electrolyte, a facile chemical surface activation is used on C–(BA-a) by nitric acid. The acid-modified porous carbon, N–C–(BA-a), is applied as the active materials for supercapacitors using Na2SO4 as an eco-friendly electrolyte. After acid treatment, the N–C–(BA-a) exhibits the largest specific capacitance of 99.94 F g−1 at a current density of 0.1 A g−1 in 1 M Na2SO4 electrolyte, which is more than 16 times larger than that of the C–(BA-a). Additionally, the N–C–(BA-a) possesses excellent cycling stability over 5000 cycles, suggesting its potential application for supercapacitors.