Highly Nanoporous Activated Carbon Derived from Poly(aniline-co-pyrrole) for Electrochemical Capacitors

The commercialization of pure carbon-based supercapacitors has faced challenges due to their limited energy density. In order to overcome this challenge, the construction of carbon materials with a hierarchical pore structure has been proposed. Herein, we describe a straightforward template-free method to develop highly nanoporous activated carbon (ACs), via a one-step process where polyaniline (PANI)–polypyrrole (PPy) copolymer is carbonized/activated with KOH in a single step at temperatures ranging from 800 to 1000 °C in N₂ environment to get a highly nanoporous ACs. The AC-900 material comprises a network of linked pores and a higher specific surface area of 3899.88 m²/g along with a high electrochemical surface area of 722.05 m²/g, allowing for large amounts of ion storage and quick ion transit. AC-900 has exhibited a very favorable electrochemical performance, in a 1 M H₂SO₄ electrolyte, a specific capacitance of 1073.9 F/g was achieved when the current density was set to 0.5 A/g. Symmetrical devices were fabricated out of two AC-900 electrodes of equivalent weight, and the results demonstrate that the AC-900//AC-900 device at a power density of approximately 868 W/kg. The device reaches a noteworthy energy density of ∼72 W h/kg, while also demonstrating very high cyclic stability with an efficiency of approximately 100% even after undergoing 6,000 charge–discharge cycles. The impressive electrochemical performance displayed by AC-900 underscores its significant potential as a polymer-derived carbon nanomaterial for electrodes in supercapacitor applications.