Influence of texture in hybrid carbon-phosphomolybdic acid materials on their performance as electrodes in supercapacitors

In this paper, phosphomolybdic acid H3PMo12O40 (PMo12) was anchored to four synthetic micro-mesoporous carbons and a commercial one to analyse the relationship between the porous texture of the support, the PMo12 adsorption and the performance of the resulting hybrid materials as electrodes in supercapacitors. The uptake of PMo12 on carbon supports follows a clear correlation with the micropore volume, which implies that PMo12 is mainly adsorbed in microporosity as a consequence of a greater confinement in this kind of pores instead of mesopores. Transmission electron microscopy indicates that the PMo12 adsorbed is homogeneously dispersed in the carbon texture. Finally, the addition of PMo12 to the original carbon electrodes provided capacitances up to 293 F per gram of electrode, substantially larger than the 206-240 F g−1 of the unmodified activated carbon. This result represented an increase of up to 35% in terms of gravimetric energy density and 160% in terms of volumetric energy density, after PMo12 integration into the carbon matrix.