Facile Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Microporous Carbon Spheres for High Performance Symmetric Supercapacitors

Nitrogen-doped microporous carbon spheres (NMCSs) are successfully prepared via carbonization and KOH activation of phenol-formaldehyde resin polymer spheres synthesized by a facile and time-saving one-step hydrothermal strategy using triblock copolymer Pluronic F108 as a soft template under the Stöber-like method condition. The influence of the ethanol/water volume ratios and carbonation temperatures on the morphologies, pore structures and electrochemical performances of the prepared NMCSs are investigated systematically. The optimal NMCSs have a large specific surface area of 1517 m(2) g(− 1) with a pore volume of 0.8 cm(3) g(− 1). The X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy analysis reveals a suitable nitrogen-doped content of 2.6 at.%. The as-prepared NMCSs used as supercapacitor electrode materials exhibit an outstanding specific capacitance of 416 F g(− 1) at a current density of 0.2 A g(− 1), also it shows an excellent charge/discharge cycling stability with 96.9% capacitance retention after 10,000 cycles. The constructed symmetric supercapacitors using PVA/KOH as the gel electrolyte can deliver a specific capacitance of 60.6 F g(− 1) at current density of 1 A g(− 1). A maximum energy density of 21.5 Wh kg(− 1) can be achieved at a power density of 800 W kg(− 1), and the energy density still maintains 13.3 Wh kg(− 1) even at a high power density of 16 kW kg(− 1). The results suggest that this work can open up a facile and effective way to synthesize the NMCSs for electrode materials of high performance energy storage devices. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s11671-018-2713-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.