Supermolecule Cucurbituril Subnanoporous Carbon Supercapacitor (SCSCS)

Jiaqing Cui; Jie Yin; Jiashen Meng; Yan Liu; Mingyue Liao; Tao Wu; Mildred Dresselhaus; Yiming Xie; Jihuai Wu; Canzhong Lu; Xingcai Zhang

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04938

Supermolecule Cucurbituril Subnanoporous Carbon Supercapacitor (SCSCS)

Nano Lett. 2021 Mar 10;21(5):2156-2164. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04938. Epub 2021 Feb 17.

Authors

Jiaqing Cui^{1

2}, Jie Yin¹, Jiashen Meng³, Yan Liu⁴, Mingyue Liao^{1

2}, Tao Wu^{1

2}, Mildred Dresselhaus³, Yiming Xie¹, Jihuai Wu¹, Canzhong Lu², Xingcai Zhang^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Engineering Research Center of Environment-Friendly Function Materials, Ministry of Education, Institute of Materials Physical Chemistry, Huaqiao University, Xiamen 361021, People's Republic of China.
² Xiamen Institute of Rare-earth Materials, Haixi Institutes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, People's Republic of China.
³ School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
⁴ School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States.

PMID: 33596083
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04938

Abstract

It is quite challenging to prepare subnanometer porous materials from traditional porous precursors, and use of supramolecules as carbon sources was seldom reported due to the complex preparation and purification processes. We explore a facile one-pot method to fabricate supramolecular coordination compounds as carbon sources. The resultant CB[6]-derived carbons (CBC) have a high N content of 7.0-22.0%, surface area of 552-861 m² g^-1, and subnano/mesopores. The CBC electrodes have a narrow size distribution at 5.9 Å, and the supercapacitor exhibits an energy density of 117.1 Wh kg^-1 and a potential window of over 3.8 V in a two-electrode system in the ionic liquid (MMIMBF₄) electrolyte with appropriate cationic (5.8 Å) and anionic (2.3 Å) diameter. This work presents the facile fabrication of novel supermolecule cucurbituril subnanoporous carbon materials and the smart design of "pores and balls" for high-performance energy storage systems.

Keywords: Supermolecule cucurbituril subnanoporous carbon supercapacitor (SCSCS); energy storage; ionic liquid; porous carbon materials; supramolecular coordination compound (SPCC).