Facile sol-gel method combined with chemical vapor deposition for mesoporous few-layer carbon

Carbon materials show promising application on energy storage due to high specific area, hierarchical porous structure and high electrical conductivity. Here mesoporous few-layer carbon (1-4 layer) with high specific surface area, unique nanoporous structure and good electron conductivity is synthesized via facile magnesium xerogels combined with chemical vapor deposition. This carbon material shows a unique 3 nm cubic pore structure and ensured great electrical conductivity with high specific area (2085 m2/g). We also find that adding benzyl alcohol in the precursor is in favor of the graphitization at high temperature and it can improve electrical conductivity of the sample further. This mesoporous few-layer carbon exhibits a specific capacitance of 242 F g−1 for supercapacitors and it is stable over 10,000 cycles. The method provides a facile way to synthesize three dimensional mesoporous few-layer carbon for energy storages.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (337KB)Download full-size image