Nitrogen-Doped\nPorous Carbon Spheres Derived from Polyacrylamide

Abstract

Spherical\nnitrogen-doped porous carbons have been prepared through a template\ncarbonization method, in which polyacrylamide (PAM) serves as carbon\nand nitrogen sources, and calcium acetate as hard template. It reveals\nthat the mass ratio of polyacrylamide and calcium acetate and the\ncarbonization temperature have crucial impacts upon the pore structures\nand the correlative capacitive performance. The <b>PAM-Ca-650-1:3</b> sample displays the best capacitance performance. It is amorphous\nwith low-graphitization degree, possessing a total BET surface area\nof 648 m² g^–1 and total pore volume of\n0.59 cm³ g^–1. At a current density of\n0.5 A g^–1, the resultant specific capacitance is\n194.7 F g^–1. It exhibits high capacitance retention\nof 97.8% after charging–discharging 5000 times. The polyacrylamide\nused is cheap and commercially available, making it promising for\nlarge-scale production of porous carbons containing nitrogen as an\nexcellent electrode material for supercapacitor.