Yeast-Based Porous Carbon with Superior Electrochemical Properties

Abstract

Biomass is a promising carbon source for supercapacitor electrode materials due to its abundant source, diversity, and low-cost. Yeast is an elliptic unicellular fungal organism that is widespread in nature. In this work, we used yeast as the carbon source and Na2SiO3 as the activator to prepare a honeycomb porous carbon with higher surface area. The yeast and Na2SiO3 were directly mixed and ground without any solvent, which is simple and characterized by large-scale application. The prepared porous carbon shows a good specific capacity of 313 F/g in 6 M KOH at a density of 0.5 A/g and an excellent rate capability of 85.9% from 0.5 to 10 A/g. The results suggest that the yeast-derived porous carbon may be a promising sustainable bio-material for the preparation of supercapacitor carbon electrode materials. This study provides an economical and practical avenue for yeast resource utilization and develops a simple approach to prepare porous carbon materials.