High-capacitance carbon electrode prepared by PVDC carbonization for aqueous EDLCs

Porous carbons with high-volumetric capacitance in aqueous electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs) were simply prepared by poly(vinylidene chloride) (PVDC) carbonization at high temperature without activation or any other additional processes. The PVDC-derived carbon is microporous with Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area about 1200 m² g⁻¹. As it possesses not only high-gravimetric capacitance (262 F g⁻¹) but also high-electrode density (0.815 g cm⁻³), the PVDC-derived carbon present an outstanding high-volumetric capacitance of 214 F cm⁻³, twice over of the commercial carbon Maxsorb-3 with a high-surface area of 3200 m² g⁻¹. The PVDC-derived carbon also exhibit good rate performance, indicating that it is a promising electrode material for EDLCs.