Enhanced capacitance of boron-doped graphene aerogels for aqueous symmetric supercapacitors

Heteroatom doping has been an effective strategy to enhance the electrochemical performance of carbon materials. Herein, boron-doped graphene aerogels (B-GAs) have been fabricated through a simple hydrothermal method, and the B-GAs reveal high specific surface area and abundant mesoporous. When employed as electrode materials for supercapacitors, the B-GAs exhibit a high specific capacitance of 308.3 F g−1 at 1 A g−1. Moreover, the B-GAs produce outstanding cycling stability with a capacitance retention of about 92% after 5000 cycles at 1 A g−1, higher than that of undoped graphene aerogels (86%). Meanwhile, the energy and power densities are higher than those of symmetric supercapacitors based on graphene aerogels electrodes. The performance improvement is due to the combination of mesoporous structure, high specific surface area and abundant defects of B-GAs. Our study demonstrates significant potential of B-GAs electrode for high performance supercapacitors.