Nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous activated carbon derived from paddy for high-performance supercapacitors

Abstract

A facile and environmentally friendly fabrication is proposed to prepare nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous activated carbon via normal-pressure popping, one-pot activation and nitrogen-doping process. The method adopts paddy as carbon precursor, KHCO3 and dicyandiamide as the safe activating agent and nitrogen dopant. The as-prepared activated carbon presents a large specific surface area of 3025 m2·g−1 resulting from the synergistic effect of KHCO3 and dicyandiamide. As an electrode material, it shows a maximum specific capacitance of 417 F·g−1 at a current density of 1 A·g−1 and very good rate performance. Furthermore, the assembled symmetric supercapacitor presents a large specific capacitance of 314.6 F·g−1 and a high energy density of 15.7 Wh·Kg−1 at 1 A·g−1, maintaining 14.4 Wh·Kg−1 even at 20 A·g−1 with the energy density retention of 91.7%. This research demonstrates that nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous activated carbon derived from paddy has a significant potential for developing a high-performance renewable supercapacitor and provides a new route for economical and large-scale production in supercapacitor application.