Porous hollow carbon microspheres from poly(aniline-co-rhodanine) prepared in micellar template for high-performance supercapacitors

Carbon materials derived from the precursors with reasonable structure and composition directly booster the enhanced performance of supercapacitors. Herein, we described a preparation only under the condition of two monomers coexistence and micelles assistance for the regular spherical poly(aniline-co-rhodanine) (PAN-RD) as the precursor by the oxidative copolymerization. The spherical PAN-RDs are converted into target porous hollow carbon microspheres for electrode materials (ACHCSs) after indispensable carbonization, activation, and re-carbonization. Thanks to introduction of rhodanine, the homogeneous, hollow and porous structure for ACHCSs-3 is preserved with a particle size of 254 nm, wall thickness of 73 nm and specific surface area of 1008 m2 g−1, respectively. As expected, in the symmetrical supercapacitors assembled with ACHCSs-3, its specific capacitance was measured as 252 F g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A g−1 and the capacity retention was 98 % after 10,000 cycles, which performance is much superior to that of carbon materials derived from polyaniline or polyrhodanine. Most strikingly, the (−)Zn//ACHCSs-3(+) aqueous zinc ion hybrid supercapacitors (ZHSCs) achieved a higher energy density of 105 Wh kg−1 at 375 W kg−1. In addition, the capacity of ZHSCs can still reach 95 % of the initial capacity (141 mAh g−1 at 0.5 A g−1) after 110 consecutive cycles under different current densities, indicating excellent rate performance.