Tailoring carbon based negative electrode by grafting electroactive 9,10-phenanthrenequinone molecules on porous carbon drastically improves the performance of a carbon/Ni(OH)2 hybrid electrochemical capacitor. The grafted-quinone moieties add a Faradaic contribution to the double layer capacitance of carbon leading to a significant increase of the charge stored by the full devices. Good cyclability is ensured due to the strong bond between 9,10-phenanthrenequinone molecules and the carbon surface. More importantly, by increasing the total capacity, the grafting improves the energy density of the full hybrid device while maintaining fast charge/discharge kinetics and thus without affecting the power density.