Cobalt doped carbon xerogels as efficient supercapacitor electrodes

Afify, Hany; Abdalla Abdelwahab, Abdalla Abdelwahab; Abdel-Samad, Hesham; Hassan, Hamdy

doi:10.21608/idj.2019.64041

Cobalt doped carbon xerogels as efficient supercapacitor electrodes

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Chemistry Department, Faculty of science, Ain-Shams Univ., Abassia, Cairo, 11566, Egypt

² Materials Science and Nanotechnology Department, Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for Advanced Sciences (PSAS), Beni-SuefUniversity, 62511 Beni-Suef, Egypt

10.21608/idj.2019.64041

Abstract

Carbon xerogel and cobalt doped carbon xerogel are successfully prepared from resorcinol-formaldehyde monomers by the sol-gel process. N₂ adsorption/desorption isotherms technique are used to characterize the surface texture and pore size distribution of prepared samples. The measured BET specific surface areas for the carbon xerogel and the cobalt doped carbon xerogel are 796.9 and 701.9 m².g^-1, respectively. These materials were tested as electrodes in a symmetric supercapacitor two-electrode configuration using 1M H₂SO₄ electrolyte by means of cyclic voltammetery technique. The cobalt doped sample exhibits relatively high specific capacitance of 231 F.g^-1(at 0.1 A.g^-1). The presence of cobalt species inside the carbon structure of xerogel lead to lowering the specific surface area, increasing the mesoporosity and consequently enhancing the accessibility for electrolytic ions inside the pores of the cobalt doped samples.

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