Glucose derived ionothermal carbons with tailor-made porosity

An ionothermal synthesis strategy to obtain a set of glucose derived carbons with tailored pore system is demonstrated. The biomass derived materials possess high surface areas and large total pore volumes with values up to 2160 m2 g−1 and 1.74 cm3 g−1, respectively. The tailoring of the pore system is realized by simply changing the molar composition of the KCl/ZnCl2 mixture which serves as combined solvent-porogen. Increasing KCl contents result in a continuous pore opening and rising pore volume leading to enhanced mass transport porosity. Those effects are accompanied by a linear decrease of the specific surface area which allows for the preparation of porous carbons of high and predictable surface areas between 2160 and 960 m2 g−1. Experiments exemplarily shown for the application as supercapacitor electrodes, the different materials show a decreased gravimetric capacity, but enhanced capacity retention as well as improved areal capacity with increased KCl content nicely supporting the improved mass transport properties.