Abstract

Nitrile-functionalized benzoxazine was successfully synthesized as a precursor for porous carbon. NH<inf>4</inf>Cl was used as a template to generate the nanosheet morphology and mesopore structure, while nickel(II) chloride in the hydrate form was used as a nickel source. The results showed that carbon samples based on pristine nitrile-functionalized benzoxazine revealed the standard isotherm of type I, representing a microporous nature. This isotherm was altered to type IV, indicating a mesoporous nature after adding the NH<inf>4</inf>Cl template, and the morphology of the carbon sample was also transformed into a more nanosheet-like structure with increasing NH<inf>4</inf>Cl loading. The specific surface area, mesoporosity and pore volume of the as-prepared samples tended to increase when increasing NH<inf>4</inf>Cl template loading, with Ni-PCN5 (5 g of NH<inf>4</inf>Cl template) having the maximum mesoporosity of 88.7%. The maximum specific surface area and pore volume are 556 m² g⁻¹ for Ni-PCN5–350 and 0.71 cm³ g⁻¹ for Ni-PCN5, respectively. In addition, the metallic nickel nanoparticles were successfully embedded in the carbon structure, which were further transformed into nickel oxide nanoparticles after an annealing process. This annealing process also resulted in carbon samples with the standard isotherm of type I. For electrochemical performance, Ni-PCN-300 also showed the highest value of the specific capacitance, as high as 181 F g⁻¹ measured at a current density of 0.1 A g⁻¹ in a 1 mol L⁻¹ KOH aqueous electrolyte solution, with an excellent cycling stability of 96.5% over 2000 testing cycles. In short, this work demonstrates a facile, inexpensive and eco-friendly approach to rationally design and synthesize nickel/nickel oxide nanoparticles-embedded porous carbon nanosheets with a micro- and mesoporous structure, as a promising candidate for a supercapacitor electrode material.