Novel porous carbon material derived from hypercross-linked polymer of p-xylene for supercapacitors electrode

Herein, we report for the first time the synthesis of porous carbon which is derived from hypercross-linking of p-xylene through Friedel-Crafts alkylation and subsequent carbonization at 800 °C for supercapacitor applications. The formation of hypercross-linking in p-xylene was confirmed by Fourier transform infra-red (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The synthesized materials, hypercross-linked p-xylene (HCP-pXy) and pyrolyzed HCP-pXy (HCP-pXy-800) were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen sorption isotherm and powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern. In a three-electrode system, HCP-pXy-800 electrode showed a specific capacitance of 242.5 F g⁻¹ at a current density of 1.25 A g⁻¹ in a 3 M KOH aqueous electrolyte. Furthermore, the specific capacitance at a current density of 1.2 5 A g⁻¹ remained 95.18% after 2000 charge-discharge cycles and thus illustrating a predominant cyclic stability of the p-xylene derived porous carbon electrode.