N-doped porous carbon with directional oriented channel structure derived from biomass peach gum/poly(o-phenylenediamine) composite for high-performance supercapacitors

Conducting polymers with conjugated structure and heteroatoms are attractive precursors to produce porous carbons. Whereas the capacitive performance of conducting polymer derived carbons is yet to be improved due to its undesirable structure and relatively low graphitization level. Herein, FeCl3 is employed as both oxidant and catalyst, while small molecule biomass peach gum derivatives are utilized as structure directing agent to manipulate the structure of poly(o-phenylenediamine) derived N-doped porous carbon. The as-prepared NPCPG/PoPD exhibits a large specific surface area of 887.9 m2 g−1 with unique directional oriented channel structure and a high N-doping level of 10.3 at.%. The NPCPG/PoPD possesses large specific capacitance of 442.1 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and excellent rate capability of 76 % in a current density range of 0.5–20 A g−1. The NPCPG/PoPD assembled symmetric supercapacitor shows superior energy density of 24.5 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 325 W kg−1. The strategy of utilizing small molecule biomass as structure directing agent and FeCl3 as catalyst to manipulate the structure of conducting polymer-derived porous carbons paves new avenue for carbon engineering.