Extraordinary Porous Few-Layer Carbons of High Capacitance from Pechini Combustion of Magnesium Nitrate Gel.

Highly capacitive carbons are viewed as promising commercial materials for supercapacitors, but few species satisfy the requirements of high capacitance and low cost. Here, we demonstrate an extraordinary porous few-layer carbon by facile Pechini combustion of magnesium nitrate gel, which combined salicylic acid as a complexing agent with magnesium nitrate as an inorganic metal salt. The as-synthesized carbon material delivers a capacitance of 415 F g-1, mostly stemming from a large specific surface area (∼1312 m2 g-1), a fluent channel for transport of the electrolyte, as well as electrochemical redox reactions at O,N-associated active sites. Such porous few-layer carbons may accelerate the adoption of carbon-based supercapacitors for commercial high-power energy storage applications.