Synthesis of mesopore-dominated porous carbon with ultra-high surface area via urea-assisted KOH activation

Abstract A mesoporous porous carbon (PC-KOH + Urea) with ultra-high specific surface area (SSA) was prepared from steam exploded poplar through urea-assisted KOH activation. The obtained PC-KOH + Urea had an ultra-high SSA of 3316 m2 g−1 and a total pore volume (VT) of 1.96 cm3 g−1, much higher than that of PC-KOH and PC-Urea, produced by KOH and urea activation alone, respectively. Meanwhile, PC-KOH + Urea possessed extremely high mesopores surface area (Smeso) (2183 m2 g−1) and mesopore volume (Vmeso) (1.46 cm3 g−1). In addition, urea can also serve as nitrogen source to dope nitrogen into PC-KOH + Urea, resulting in nitrogen content of 3.29%. To study the effects of urea on pore-forming, thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and thermogravimetric infrared technology (TG-IR) were adopted. It can be assumed that the ultra-high SSA of PC-KOH + Urea was mainly attributed to the reactions between pyrolysis products of urea and carbon. With ultra-high SSA, mesopore-dominated structure, and nitrogen doping, PC-KOH + Urea exhibited a high specific capacitance of 335.3 F g−1 at current density of 0.5 A g−1 in 6 M KOH aqueous electrolyte. In cyclic stability measurement, the capacitance retentions of PC-KOH + Urea were 99.6% after 4000 cycles. Thus, urea-assisted KOH activation was a feasible method to produce porous carbon with excellent performance.