Carbon aerogel as active material for double layer capacitor: synthesis and electrochemical characterization

Abstract

Carbon aerogels (C-aerogels) are highly porous materials produced by carbonization of resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogels under inert atmosphere. Carbon aerogel-based electrodes were electrochemically characterized for supercapacitor applications. The surface area and pore sized distributions of the C-aerogel as the electrode active material affects drastically the capacitance behavior. Through the galvanostatic charge/discharge measurement, it was found that the supercapacitor with mesoporous C-aerogel showed the best performance after 10000 cycles, reaching capacitance values of 17.6 and 19 F·g–1 for current densities of 2 and 40 A·g–1, respectively.