Nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbons based on cyanamide as the dopant for supercapacitor

Nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbons (N-doped OMCs) with a high surface area of 1741 m2/g and nitrogen content up to 15 wt.% have been synthesized by nanocasting approach by using SBA-15 as a hard template, phenolic resin (resol) as a carbon source and high nitrogen-containing cyanamide as the nitrogen dopant. The introduction of cyanamide not only incorporates high-content nitrogen into the carbon matrix in the primary forms of pyridinic and quaternary species, but also greatly increases the surface area of materials. The obtained N-doped OMCs have large surface area with mesoporosity up to 92%, uniform and appropriate pore size (3.6–4.1 nm), large pore volume (1.2–1.81 cm3/g). These merits together with high nitrogen enrichment lead to a specific capacitance (230 F/g at 0.5 A/g) and good rate capability (175 F/g at 20 A/g with capacitance retention of 77.4%) in 6 M KOH aqueous electrolytes.