Perylene-Templated Hierarchically Porous Carbon Fibers as Efficient Supercapacitor Electrode Material

Nitrogen-doped nanoporous carbon fibers were prepared using chromonic perylene bisimide self-assemblies as tem-plates. The method involves the formation of perylene-templated silica followed by carbonization and etching. This strategy does not require any additional carbon or nitrogen precursor and therefore omits the associated impregnation step. The obtained carbon fibers were tested as electrode materials for supercapacitor applications. Owing to the high surface area (695 m2 g11) and well-developed porosity (pore volume ca. 0.67 cm3 g11) with hierarchical micro-and mesopore structures, N-doping and high-wettability, amorphous carbon fibers show excellent electrical double -layer capacitance with faradaic pseudocapacitance performance in an aqueous electrolyte solu-tion (1 M H2SO4). A working electrode prepared from the opti-mal sample achieved a high specific capacitance of 317 F g11 at a current density of 1 A g11 with excellent capacitance retention of 80% at a high current density of 50 A g11 suggesting a fast electrolyte ion diffusion at the electrode surface. The electrode also showed outstanding cycle stability of 99% after 10,000 successive charge-discharge cycles. These results show the high potential of chromonic-derived hierarchically porous car-bon fibers as electrode materials for high-performance super -capacitors with advantages over electrospinning and catalytic fabrication methods, such as the absence of heavy metals and organic solvents in the preparation procedure.