{"title":"Impact of nitrogen doping on charge storage and self-discharge behaviour of zinc ion hybrid supercapacitor","authors":"Sayli Pradhan, Rupali Mane, Neetu Jha","doi":"10.1016/j.jpowsour.2025.236686","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Zinc-ion hybrid supercapacitors (ZHSCs) offer a compelling balance of high energy and power densities, safety, and cost-effectiveness, making them attractive for sustainable energy storage applications. However, the limited specific capacitance of conventional carbon cathodes restricts their compatibility with high-capacity Zn anodes, leading to suboptimal performance. Nitrogen doping in carbon materials emerges as a promising approach to address this limitation by enhancing electrochemical properties. In this study, nitrogen-doped carbon materials are synthesized using varying urea precursor concentrations to systematically evaluate their impact on specific capacitance, cycling stability, coulombic efficiency, and self-discharge behaviour. Optimized doping achieves a 2.4-fold improvement in specific capacitance (268 F g<sup>−1</sup> at 1 A g<sup>−1</sup>) and 97 % cycling retention, compared to undoped carbon (111 F g<sup>−1</sup> at 1 A g<sup>−1</sup>). A detailed self-discharge analysis reveals significant suppression of leakage current (9.4-fold reduction) and an 18.3 % lower OCV decay over 300,000 s, attributed to higher pyridinic and graphitic nitrogen content. By deconvoluting ohmic, redistribution, and faradaic contributions, the role of nitrogen doping in mitigating self-discharge is clarified. These results underscore the potential of nitrogen-doped carbons to advance ZHSCs, paving the way for their implementation in high-performance and sustainable energy storage solutions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Power Sources","volume":"640 ","pages":"Article 236686"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Power Sources","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775325005221","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, PHYSICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Zinc-ion hybrid supercapacitors (ZHSCs) offer a compelling balance of high energy and power densities, safety, and cost-effectiveness, making them attractive for sustainable energy storage applications. However, the limited specific capacitance of conventional carbon cathodes restricts their compatibility with high-capacity Zn anodes, leading to suboptimal performance. Nitrogen doping in carbon materials emerges as a promising approach to address this limitation by enhancing electrochemical properties. In this study, nitrogen-doped carbon materials are synthesized using varying urea precursor concentrations to systematically evaluate their impact on specific capacitance, cycling stability, coulombic efficiency, and self-discharge behaviour. Optimized doping achieves a 2.4-fold improvement in specific capacitance (268 F g−1 at 1 A g−1) and 97 % cycling retention, compared to undoped carbon (111 F g−1 at 1 A g−1). A detailed self-discharge analysis reveals significant suppression of leakage current (9.4-fold reduction) and an 18.3 % lower OCV decay over 300,000 s, attributed to higher pyridinic and graphitic nitrogen content. By deconvoluting ohmic, redistribution, and faradaic contributions, the role of nitrogen doping in mitigating self-discharge is clarified. These results underscore the potential of nitrogen-doped carbons to advance ZHSCs, paving the way for their implementation in high-performance and sustainable energy storage solutions.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Power Sources is a publication catering to researchers and technologists interested in various aspects of the science, technology, and applications of electrochemical power sources. It covers original research and reviews on primary and secondary batteries, fuel cells, supercapacitors, and photo-electrochemical cells.
Topics considered include the research, development and applications of nanomaterials and novel componentry for these devices. Examples of applications of these electrochemical power sources include:
• Portable electronics
• Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicles
• Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems
• Storage of renewable energy
• Satellites and deep space probes
• Boats and ships, drones and aircrafts
• Wearable energy storage systems