Three-dimensionally macroporous nitrogen and boron co-doped graphene aerogels derived from polyaspartamide for supercapacitor electrodes

Abstract In this study, we report the facile synthesis of three-dimensional (3D) macroporous N- and B-doped reduced graphene oxide (N, B-rGO) aerogels derived from a biodegradable polyaspartamide and benzene-1,4-diboronic acid. Owing to the 3D crosslinked networking structures and heteroatom compositions, the N, B-rGO aerogel provides outstanding compressive elasticity and persistent electrical conductivity, delivering high pseudocapacitance. Accordingly, the N, B-rGO electrode delivers the specific capacitance of 283.8 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 in alkaline aqueous electrolyte, greater than those of N-rGO and B-rGO. The capacitance retention of 67.8 % is obtained when the current densities increase up to 10 A g−1. The symmetric supercapacitor, integrating N, B-rGO with PVA/KOH gel electrolyte, demonstrates a prominent cycling stability with 93.5 % of capacitance retention over 10,000 charge/discharge cycles, delivering the maximum energy and power densities of 5.03 W h kg−1 and 1.93 kW kg−1, respectively.