Higher surface area carbon for supercaps and batteries created by Stanford scientists

Stanford scientists increased the surface area of carbon material for range of applications which also includes super capacitors. Zhenan Bao, the senior author of the study and a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford and her colleagues synthesized high-quality carbon using less costing and uncontaminated chemicals and polymers. They started the process by using conducting hydrogel, a spongy water-based polymer something like soft contact lenses. "We have developed a 'designer carbon' that is both versatile and controllable," said Zhenan Bao, the senior author of the study and a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. "Our study shows that this material has exceptional energy-storage capacity, enabling unprecedented performance in lithium-sulfur batteries and supercapacitors." "Hydrogel polymers form an interconnected, three-dimensional framework that's ideal for conducting electricity," Bao said. "This framework also contains organic molecules and functional atoms, such as nitrogen, which allow us to tune the electronic properties of the carbon." They have used mild carbonization and activation process to convert the polymer organic frameworks into nanometer-thick sheets of carbon. "The carbon sheets form a 3-D network that has good pore connectivity and high electronic conductivity," said graduate student John To, a co-lead author of the study. ...