Interconnected mesoporous carbon sheet for supercapacitors from low-cost resources

Interconnected mesoporous carbon sheets (MCSs) were prepared from cheap coal tar pitch with low-cost CaCO3 nanoparticles and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as porogens for supercapacitors. The results show that the surface area of MCSs can be tuned in the range of 87-167 m(2) g(-1). The interconnected MCS2-1-1 made at 2:1:1 of CaCO3/coal tar pitch/CTAB mass ratio retains a capacitance of 87 F g(-1) at 0.1 A g(-1) after 100 cycles in ionic liquid electrolyte with high retention of 93.1%, showing excellent cycle stability. The energy density of MCS2-1-1 capacitor only drops from 64.18 Wh kg(-1) to 22.19 Wh kg(-1) with the average power density increasing from 115W kg(-1) to 4267W kg(-1), demonstrating good rate performance. This work suggests a low-cost way to synthesize high performance MCS for energy storage materials. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.