Mesoporous Thin Films of Nitrogen-Doped Carbon with Electrocatalytic Properties

Abstract

Mesoporous carbon thin films (MCTFs) doped with nitrogen was synthesized by replication of mesoporous silica thin films. Nitrogen dopants were introduced by using nitrogen-containing polypyrrole as the carbon precursor through electrodeposition. The electron microscopic data on MCTFs showed replication with fidelity of the pore structure of mesoporous silica films. The nitrogen content of MCTFs is relatively high and a large fraction of them (∼40%) is pyridinic, the most catalytically active form of nitrogen dopants in carbon. Electrochemical characterization data show that MCTFs have high electrocatalytic properties for the iodine/iodide redox reactions and a large capacitance with the geometric capacitance of 3.92 mF cm–2, the largest for porous carbon materials synthesized by pyrolysis of carbon precursors.