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Development of Pyrolyzed Nanoporous Carbon Electrodes with Sponge-like Networks of Mesopores for Use as Supercapacitors

Tuesday, 31 May 2016: 09:20
Aqua 311 B (Hilton San Diego Bayfront)
Y. Lim, S. H. Joo, and H. Shin (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology)
We developed patternable nanoporous carbon microstructures fabricated using simple O2 plasma etching and carbon-MEMS for the application of supercapacitors. Carbon-MEMS is a versatile microfabrication technology enabling batch fabrication of micro-/nano-sized carbon structure of complex architecture at a wafer level using conventional UV-lithography and pyrolysis processes.  By incorporating a simple O2 plasma etching process prior to the pyrolysis process, sponge-like networks of mesopores and nanoporous surface are formed on the top surface of pre-patterned SU-8 negative photoresist structures due to self-masking effect. These O2-plasma-treated photoresist structures are converted into nanoporous glassy carbon electrodes (average pore size = 0.56 – 0.71 nm) with sponge-like networks of mesopores via pyrolysis without using any complex nanofabrication process. As a result, the surface area and electrochemical capacitance of the nanoporous carbon surface are increased up to ~ 795 (surface area = ~ 994 m2∙g-1) and ~ 29.6 times (24.1 mF∙cm-2 at 5 mV/s) respectively compared to a bare carbon surface. In addition, arrays of 3D nanoporous carbon micro-structures such as cylinders can be simply integrated on the planar carbon electrode surface by adding a photoresist patterning process enabling further capacitance improvement up to 41.9 times. The pore size and surface morphology of the nanoporous carbon are controllable depending on O2 plasma etching time.