Structural disorder determines capacitance in nanoporous carbons

XY Liu and D Lyu and C Merlet and MJA Leesmith and X Hua and Z Xu and CP Grey and AC Forse, SCIENCE, 384, 321-325 (2024).

DOI: 10.1126/science.adn6242

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.

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