N-doped carbon derived from the monomer of chitin for high-performance supercapacitor

The monomer of sustainable chitin, N-acetylglucosamine (NAG), is fabricated into a kind of N-doped carbon material (NC-HAP-700), with the template of hydroxyapatite (HAP). NC-HAP-700 exhibits excellent electrochemical capacitance of 346 F/g at the current density of 0.5 A/g and capacitance retention of 92% after 5000 times of charge-discharge cycles, which is superior to most reported functional carbon materials. Experiments and characterizations suggest that HAP is an ideal template to improve the surface area, create microporous structure and carbonyl groups for final carbon product. High percentage of pyridinic N, pyrrolic N and oxygen-containing groups are main contributions to the pseudo capacitance of NC-HAP-700. More important, the supercapacitors exhibit practical application in which solar energy can be stored and release to light up red LED.