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“Cubism” on the Nanoscale: From Squaric Acid to Porous Carbon Cubes
Author(s) -
Mani Christian Mbaya,
Berthold Thomas,
Fechler Nina
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201600284
Subject(s) - materials science , supercapacitor , squaric acid , zinc , porosity , carbon fibers , capacitance , cube (algebra) , horizontal scan rate , chemical engineering , nanoscopic scale , nanotechnology , composite number , composite material , electrode , electrochemistry , metallurgy , organic chemistry , chemistry , cyclic voltammetry , combinatorics , engineering , mathematics
3D cube‐shaped composites and carbon microparticles with hierarchically porous structure are prepared by a facile template‐free synthesis route. Via the coordination of zinc acetate dihydrate and squaric acid, porous 3D cubic crystalline particles of zinc squarate can be obtained. These are easily transformed into the respective zinc oxide carbon composites under preservation of the macromorphology by heat treatment. Washing of the composite materials results in hierarchically porous carbons with high surface areas (1295 m 2 g –1 ) and large pore volumes (1.5 cm 3 g −1 ) under full retention of the cube‐like architecture of the initial crystals. The materials are shown to be promising electrode materials for supercapacitor applications with a specific capacitance of 133 F g −1 in H 2 SO 4 at a scan rate of 5 mV s −1 , while 67% of this specific capacitance is retained, when increasing the scan rate to 200 mV s −1 .