Glucose derived ionothermal carbons with tailor-made porosity

An ionothermal synthesis strategy to obtain a set of glucose derived carbons with tailored pore system is demonstrated. The biomass derived materials possess high surface areas and large total pore volumes with values up to 2160 m(2) g(-1) and 1.74 cm(3) g(-1), respectively. The tailoring of the pore system is realized by simply changing the molar composition of the KCl/ZnCl2 mixture which serves as combined solvent-porogen. Increasing KCl contents result in a continuous pore opening and rising pore volume leading to enhanced mass transport porosity. Those effects are accompanied by a linear decrease of the specific surface area which allows for the preparation of porous carbons of high and predictable surface areas between 2160 and 960 m(2) g(-1). Experiments exemplarily shown for the application as supercapacitor electrodes, the different materials show a decreased gravimetric capacity, but enhanced capacity retention as well as improved areal capacity with increased KCl content nicely supporting the improved mass transport properties. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.