Carbonized Cellulose Nanofibril/Graphene Oxide Composite Aerogels for High-Performance Supercapacitors

Abstract

The rapidly growing market of portable electronic devices has sparked ever-increased interests in the development of low-cost and sustainable supercapacitor materials with a long cycling life, high specific capacity, and operation security. In this work, we fabricated an eco-friendly and highly scalable supercapacitor electrode material by fabricating three-dimensional (3D) carbon-based aerogels using 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical (TEMPO)-oxidized cellulose nanofibril (TOCN) and graphene oxide (GO) as precursors via a facile ion-exchange method followed by freeze-drying. The obtained TOCN/GO aerogels were further carbonized in argon atmosphere to prepare the carbon nanofibril with improved conductivity and transform GO to reduced graphene oxide (RGO). The electrochemical performance of the carbonized TOCN/RGO (CTRGO) aerogels is presented, achieving a high specific capacitance of 398.47 F/g at the current density of 0.5 A/g. Moreover, the initial capacity still maintains 99.77% after 10000 charging/discharging cycles, revealing the outstanding cycling stability. Therefore, the as-prepared carbon nanofibril/reduced graphene oxide aerogel is a promising prospect for realizing large-scale applications.