Enhancing the performance of electrochemical capacitor electrodes by modifying their carbon nanopores with redox-active materials

抄録

Porous carbons, as represented by activated carbon, have a high surface area and a large pore volume, together with high electrical conductivity and high chemical stability. Their superior properties over other porous materials make them ideal hosts for guest materials to produce hybrids that have intermediate properties. Organic compounds and polymers have poorer electrical conductivity and chemical stability than carbon materials, but these can be compensated for by hybridizing them with porous carbon materials. Recently, we have focused our research on the hybridization of porous carbons with redox-active materials, such as conductive polymers and redox-active organic compounds, to achieve high-performance electrochemical capacitors. These redox-active materials are located inside the pores of porous carbon host materials, and the resulting hybrids have large contact areas between the conductive carbon surface and the redox-active materials, and exhibit properties that are different from the intrinsic characteristics of both the host and guest materials. Recent advances in this research area have provided further insight into the chemical and physical properties of these hybrids. In this review, we summarize the synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of the electrochemical properties of porous carbon/redox-active material hybrids to offer new insight into our understanding of these materials.