Mesoporous Carbon Design for Ionic Liquid-Based, Double-Layer Supercapacitors

The use of pyrrolidinium-based ionic liquids (ILs) in asymmetric double-layer capacitors (AEDLC) with positive and negative carbon electrodes of different weight is a powerful strategy for developing safe, high specific-energy supercapacitors operating at > 3.5 V. The preparation and characterization of ordered (OTC) and disordered (DTC) template carbons, the latter obtained by a fast and low-cost method, are reported. The porosity and capacitance features of the template carbons are discussed in view of their application in IL-based AEDLCs and compared with the properties of aero/cryo/xerogel carbons and a commercial activated carbon. The performance of an N-butyl-N-methyl pyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide-based AEDLC assembled with DTC carbon electrodes operating at 3.9 V featuring high specific energy of 47 Wh kg-1 is then reported. The impact of porosity and surface chemistry of carbons on the electrode capacitive response in IL and on the performance of the IL-based AEDLC in terms of energy, power and weight distribution of module components is discussed. The effect of IL nature and carbon porosity on the time constant of the double-layer charging process was also investigated by voltammetric and impedance studies.