Effect of carbonization atmosphere on electrochemical properties of nitrogen-doped porous carbon

Abstract

Nitrogen atom doping has been found to enhance the electrochemical performance of porous carbon (PC). In this study, hollow tubular nitrogen-doped porous carbon (N/PC) was synthesized using polyvinylpyrrolidone as the carbon–nitrogen source and fibrous brucite as the template through carbonization. The effects of nitrogen and argon protective atmospheres on the nitrogen content, the specific surface area (SSA), and electrochemical properties of N/PC were investigated. The results showed that compared with N/FBC-Ar, N/FBC-N₂ prepared in nitrogen protective atmosphere had a higher nitrogen content and a larger proportion of pyrrolic nitrogen (N-5) and pyridinic nitrogen (N-6). N/FBC-N₂ displayed a specific capacitance (C) of 194.1 F·g⁻¹ at 1 A·g⁻¹, greater than that of N/FBC-Ar (174.3 F·g⁻¹). This work reveals that the nitrogen doping with a higher nitrogen content in nitrogen protective atmosphere is more favorable. Furthermore, a larger proportion of pyrrolic nitrogen and pyridinic nitrogen in the doped nitrogen atoms significantly enhances the electrochemical performance.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

nitrogen-doped porous carbon / fibrous brucite / electrochemical property / carbonization atmosphere

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Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51774016 and 52074015), Clinical Medicine Plus X - Young Scholars Project, Peking University (2022-33; 2023-45), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (China), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019XKQYMS76), and the Central University Basic Research Business Fund (2023QN1038). We also express gratitude to Associate Professor Kai Chen’s team for their contact angle measurement instrument and Professor Peizhong Feng’s team for the Chenhua electrochemical workstation.

Electronic supplementary information

Supplementary materials can be found in the online version at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11706-023-0669-1 and https://journal.hep.com.cn/foms/EN/10.1007/s11706-023-0669-1, which include Figs. S1‒S7 and Table S1.

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