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Preparation of activated carbon paper through a simple method and application as a supercapacitor

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Abstract

As one of the most promising energy-storage devices, supercapacitors have drawn great research interests because of their outstanding electrochemical behavior. Carbon paper holds great prospect as an electrode material for supercapacitors since it is inexpensive and highly conductive. In this paper, the modified Hummer’s method is employed as an effective strategy to produce activated carbon paper with rougher surfaces and increased specific surface areas. It is further observed that hydrophilic groups such as hydroxyl (–OH), carbonyl (>C=O), and carboxyl (–COOH) have been introduced into the surface of carbon paper over treatment and they serve as strong polar sites to absorb water molecules, leading to improved hydrophilicity. Thus, the as-treated carbon papers with both increased specific surface areas and improved surface hydrophilicity exhibited excellent capacitive characteristics. Moreover, the charge/discharge test over 2000 cycles shows their excellent long-term capacitive retention.

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Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51206029) and Guangdong Innovated and Entrepreneurial Research Team Program (No. 2013C099).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Distributed Energy Systems, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, 523808, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Yongfu Qiu, Zhiyu Cheng, Bing Guo & Hongbo Fan

  2. Advanced Composite Materials Research Department, Tsinghua Innovation Centre, Dongguan, People’s Republic of China

    Shoufang Sun, Tao Wu, Lei Jin, Lu Fan & Xiaoye Feng

Authors
  1. Yongfu Qiu
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  2. Zhiyu Cheng
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  3. Bing Guo
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  4. Hongbo Fan
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  5. Shoufang Sun
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  6. Tao Wu
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  7. Lei Jin
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  8. Lu Fan
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  9. Xiaoye Feng
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Correspondence to Bing Guo.

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Qiu, Y., Cheng, Z., Guo, B. et al. Preparation of activated carbon paper through a simple method and application as a supercapacitor. J Mater Sci 50, 1586–1593 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-014-8719-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-014-8719-9

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