Novel Pluronic F127‑mediated heteroatom doping modified carbon paper electrodes for supercapacitor applications

This study reports a novel method for fabricating carbon paper (CP) self-supporting electrodes via the synergistic modification of phenolic resin with Pluronic F127 and boron-nitrogen co-doped carbon (CNB). Results demonstrated that the soft-templating effect of Pluronic F127, in conjunction with the synergistic heteroatom doping derived from urea (N) and boric acid (B), facilitated the formation of a mesopore-dominated hierarchical pore structure within the CP self-supporting electrodes. The F127-CNB@CP electrode exhibited the tensile and flexural strengths of 11.40 MPa and 633.83 MPa, which are 146% and 77% higher than those of CP electrode, respectively. It also exhibited lower in-plane and through-plane resistivities, which was attributed to attributed to improved interfacial electron transport pathways. Electrochemical tests revealed that the F127-CNB@CP electrode delivered an areal capacitance of 1589.93 mF cm −2 at a current density of 1 mA cm −2 , retains 81.4% of its capacitance at 10 mA cm −2 ，and achieves energy and power densities of 0.22 mWh cm −2 and 4.85 mW cm −2 , respectively. A symmetric supercapacitor assembled with F127-CNB@CP electrode maintains 92.8% of its initial capacitance after 30,000 cycles, delivering an energy density of 0.14 mWh cm −2 and a power density of 0.9 mW cm −2 . This work provides new insights and a theoretical basis for the design of high-performance CP based self-supporting supercapacitor electrodes.