Facile preparation of water soluble phenol formaldehyde resin-derived activated carbon by Na 2 CO 3 activation for high performance supercapacitors

We developed a one-pot strategy to fabricate activated carbons by using water soluble phenol-formaldehyde resin as precursor and Na2CO3 as activating agent. The prepared carbon materials have a typical hierarchical pore texture and a large specific surface area (SSA) of 1357 m2 g−1. When used as electrode materials for supercapacitors, the material shows a high specific capacitance of 226 F g−1 at 0.05 A g−1, good rate capability of 62.4% in the range of 0.05–20 A g−1 and outstanding cycling stability (only 2.5% loss in specific capacitance after 5000 cycles). These results suggest a low-cost and environmentally friendly design of electrode materials for high-performance supercapacitors.