Capacitive performance of mesoporous carbons derived from the citrates in ionic liquid

Mesoporous carbons with different pore structures are prepared via a simple pyrolysis process using citrate salts as precursors. BaC-T carbons derived from barium citrate possess large pore volume and typical multimodal pore size distribution (PSD), while MgC-T carbons derived from magnesium citrate possess high specific surface areas due to their dominant small mesopores and micropores. The capacitive performance of the prepared carbons is investigated in ionic liquid and high specific capacitances (maximum of 180.3 F g−1 for MgC-700) are achieved. Experimental data demonstrate that porosity and surface chemistry corporately determine the capacitive performance. BaC-700 and BaC-800 present good rate performance, and exhibit energy densities of about 50 Wh kg−1. The good capacitive performance of these carbons is attributed to their bimodal PSD with large pore size and appropriate surface properties. The MgC-800 and BaC-800 carbons present good durability of capacitance during three thousand of charge/discharge cycles.