The Structure And Electrochemical Properties Of Titanium Carbide-derived Carbon

Carbide-derived Carbon （CDC） is a novel carbon nanocomposite synthesized fromdifferent carbide by removing the metal atoms. Due to its characters of high specificsurface area （SSA） and tunable pore size and distribution, CDC has potential applicationsin many fields. As electrode materials for supercapacitors, CDC attracted much attentionin rencent years.In this paper, Titanium Carbide-derived Carbon （TiC-CDC） with different structureswas synthesized from titanium carbide by means of chlorination method at differenttemperature （400,600,800,1000℃）, then nitric acid （HNO3） activation was conducted.The structure characters of TiC-CDC were studied using XRD, Raman, TEM, InfraredSpectrum and so on. Then the electrochemical behavior and the infuence of alcohol wereinvestigated using three electrode system in KOH electrolyte.It is found that, the degree of order of the produced TiC-CDC increases withincreasing chlorination temperature and the microstructure changes from amorphouscarbon to graphite ribbons. The pore size of TiC-CDC with a narrow pore size distributionincreases with the rising of chlorination temperature and there is mesopore in TiC-CDCsynthesized at1000℃. On the aspect of Surface Characteristics, TiC-CDC synthesized atlower temperature with disordered structure possesse hydrophilicity due to the existing oflarge amount of dangling bond and TiC-CDC-1000is hydrophobic because of thestructure with graphite ribbon. The electrochemical studies show that the highest spcificcapacitance were botained in TiC-CDC-600, which is164F g^-1and TiC-CDC-1000hashigher ohmic and charge-transfer resistances, the capacitance value of which is8.2F g^-1.After addingof a small amount of alcohol into the KOH electrolyte, the capacitance ofTiC-CDC-1000increases to72F g^-1rapidly accompanied with the decreasing of ohmicand charge-transfer resistances, which indicate that the addition of alcohol improves thewettability and electrochemical property of TiC-CDC. Activated with HNO3,TiC-CDC-1000was introduced with a little amount of functional groups, the capacitancevalue of which increases to138F g^-1due to the improvement of its wettability. TiC-CDC synthesized at lower temperature were introduced with large amount of functional groups,which contribute to the generation of pesudocapacitance with the increasing ofcapacitance. But with over Activation, TiC-CDC were introduced excessive amount offunctional groups, which led to the blockage of the channel coupled with the increase ofcharge-transfer resistances. The existence of alcohol in electrolyte led to the increase ofthe size of solvated ions and TiC-CDC synthesized at lower temperature possess smallpore size, which led to the increase of charge-transfer resistances and decrease of surfaceutilization rate and specific capacitance.