Ionothermal strategy towards template-free hierarchical porous carbons for supercapacitive energy storage

Abstract Here, we present an ionothermal strategy to synthesize a series of porous organic polymers (POPs) derived template-free hierarchical porous carbons. Our designed strategy could effectively address the issue of pore structure collapse during the carbonization process, making it possible to realize the porosity control of porous carbons. Accordingly, the obtained porous carbons with diverse pore characteristics, which are designed at the bottom-up molecular level, show remarkable improved electrochemical performance compared with the traditionally carbonized ones. The supercapacitor electrodes based on these carbons with optimized pore structures can reach a maximum specific capacitance of 189 F/g (with a gravimetric energy density of 76 Wh/kg) in pure ionic liquid while the porous carbon with wide pore size distribution exhibits high rate capability with a high energy density of 36 Wh/kg at a high power density of 40 kW/kg.