Novel polybenzoxazine-based carbon aerogel electrode for supercapacitors

Abstract

In this study, polybenzoxazine, a new high performance thermosetting resin, was used to prepare carbon aerogels used as an electrode for spercapacitors. Two type of polybenzoxazines, derived from two different amines, aniline and triethylenetetramine, and denoted as BA-a and BA-teta, respectively, were chosen as the reactants for the organic precursor preparation. The surface areas of carbon aerogels from both BA-a and Ba-teta were 391 and 368 m1/g, respectively. The pore size of each carbon aerogel was in the range of 2 to 5 nm which is a suitable pore size for being used as electrodes in electrochemical application. The electrochemical properties of the obtained carbon aerogels showed good performance for supercapacitor applications with specific capacitance of 55.78 and 20.53 F/g for BA-teta and BA-a, respectively. At low voltage scanning, 1 and 5 mV/s, the cyclic voltammogram of the carbon aerogel derived from BA-teta gave better rectangular shape than that of the other carbon aerogel. Impedance spectra of both carbon aerogels confirm the results of the specific capacitance and the cyclic voltammogram analyses.