Preparation of Boron/Sulfur-Codoped Porous Carbon Derived from Biological Wastes and Its Application in a Supercapacitor

Abstract

Abundant biomass resources are a good choice for preparing electrode materials for supercapacitors, but developing a versatile and simple synthetic method to convert them into electrode materials remains a challenge. In the present research, our team reports a promising strategy and cost-efficient method to fabricate boron/sulfur-codoped porous carbon from biomass sources, mainly utilizing four biomass materials. Detailed material characterization showed that the samples produced by this approach possess rich B and S doping. Additionally, the original biomass materials treated by activation produce abundant pores. Therefore, owing to the synergetic effect of abundant atomic doping and microporous/mesoporous distribution, the obtained carbon as electrode material manifested excellent specific capacitances of 290 F g−1 at a 0.5 A g−1 current density. Moreover, the specific energy of the prepared samples of the as-assembled symmetric supercapacitor is as high as 16.65 Wh kg−1 in 1 M Na2SO4, with a brilliant cyclical performance of only a 2.91% capacitance decay over 10,000 cycles. In addition, it has been verified universally that three other types of bio-wastes can also prepare electrode material using this method. This paper represents a significant attempt to turn waste biomass into treasure while also providing ideas for the design and preparation of supercapacitor electrode materials.