Synthesis of rich fluffy porous carbon spheres by dissolution–reassembly method for supercapacitors

Carbon spheres with rich porous structure are regarded as ideal materials for practical supercapacitors because of their excellent thermal stabilities, large surface areas, high electrical conductivities and good cycle stabilities. In this work, a novel dissolution–reassembly method is developed for the fabrication of rich porous carbon spheres (PCS) with high capability for supercapacitor. The resorcinol–formaldehyde resin is firstly synthesized then completely dissolved by acetone into oligomer fragments which further reassemble with F127 to form new structured resin spheres. After carbonization, PCS are obtained. The obtained PCS have regular spherical morphology, rich porous structure, high specific surface area and pore volume. As electrode material for supercapacitor, the PCS exhibit excellent performance with capacitance 240 F g−1 at the current density of 1 A g−1 and outstanding cycling life stability (98.1% after 5000 cycles) at the current density of 5 A g−1, showing the great potential for supercapacitor.