Alkali metal boosted atom rearrangement in amorphous carbon towards crystalline graphitic belt skeleton for high performance supercapacitors

Alkali metal is used as a new catalyst to boost atom rearrangement in amorphous carbon at a low temperature (<800 °C) and successfully achieve graphitic carbons with an ultrahigh surface area (>2600 m2 g−1), which is several times higher than that of other reported graphitic carbon. The graphitization mechanism triggered by alkali metals is investigated in detail. When used as an electrode material, this carbon shows a wide working window of 3.2 V, a high charge/discharge ability up to 100 A g−1, and an excellent cycling stability, which ranks top level of the reported graphitic carbon.406