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Structural disorder determines capacitance in nanoporous carbons.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

The difficulty in characterizing the complex structures of nanoporous carbon electrodes has led to a lack of clear design principles with which to improve supercapacitors. Pore size has long been considered the main lever to improve capacitance. However, our evaluation of a large series of commercial nanoporous carbons finds a lack of correlation between pore size and capacitance. Instead, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements and simulations reveal a strong correlation between structural disorder in the electrodes and capacitance. More disordered carbons with smaller graphene-like domains show higher capacitances owing to the more efficient storage of ions in their nanopores. Our findings suggest ways to understand and exploit disorder to achieve highly energy-dense supercapacitors.

Description

Journal Title

Science

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0036-8075
1095-9203

Volume Title

384

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Rights and licensing

Except where otherwised noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International
Sponsorship
MRC (MR/T043024/1)

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