Structural disorder determines capacitance in nanoporous carbons

Liu, Xinyu and Lyu, Dongxun and Merlet, Céline and Leesmith, Matthew J. A. and Hua, Xiao and Xu, Zhen and Grey, Clare P. and Forse, Alexander C. (2024) Structural disorder determines capacitance in nanoporous carbons. Science, 384 (6693). pp. 321-325. ISSN 0036-8075

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Abstract

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.