Influence of Impregnation of Activated Carbon Electrodes with p-Benzoquinone on Supercapacitor Performance

Abstract

Impregnation is a cost-effective and scalable method for the non-covalent addition of different compounds on the surface of suitable substrates. For supercapacitors, it provides an alternative strategy for attaining higher energy densities by combining high surface area carbon electrodes with surface species adding a pseudocapacitive contribution. In this work, we study the performance of activated carbon electrodes impregnated with para-benzoquinone (p-BQ). It is observed that immobilized p-BQ can improve by more than 100% the specific capacitance of the bare carbon, reaching nearly 350 F g⁻¹ at 10 mV s⁻¹. The results here discussed are a step forward for the optimization of impregnation methods, which may lead to optimized carbon-based supercapacitors.