Volume 46, Issue 4 pp. 4781-4793
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Ultrahigh-areal-capacitance aqueous supercapacitors enabled by soft biomass-derived porous carbon membrane

Mengxia Cui

Mengxia Cui

School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and Technology, State Ethnic Affairs Commission, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Ningxia Key Laboratory of Solar Chemical Conversion Technology, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

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Fang Wang

Fang Wang

School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and Technology, State Ethnic Affairs Commission, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Ningxia Key Laboratory of Solar Chemical Conversion Technology, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

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Zhengguo Zhang

Zhengguo Zhang

School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and Technology, State Ethnic Affairs Commission, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Ningxia Key Laboratory of Solar Chemical Conversion Technology, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

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Shixiong Min

Corresponding Author

Shixiong Min

School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and Technology, State Ethnic Affairs Commission, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Ningxia Key Laboratory of Solar Chemical Conversion Technology, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, China

Correspondence

Shixiong Min, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, North Minzu University, Yinchuan, 750021, China.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 14 November 2021
Citations: 16

Funding information: Foundation of Academic Top-notch Talent Support Program of the North Minzu University, Grant/Award Number: 2019BGBZ08; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of the North Minzu University, Grant/Award Number: FWNX41; Innovation and Entrepreneurship Projects for Returnees of Ningxia Province; Leading Talents Program of Science and Technology Innovation in Ningxia Province, Grant/Award Number: 2020GKLRLX14; Natural Science Foundation of Ningxia Province, Grant/Award Numbers: 2021AAC02016, 2021AAC03201; the Cooperative Scientific Research Project of Chunhui Plan of Ministry of Education of China, Grant/Award Number: 201900081

Summary

Sustainable biomass-derived carbons in powdery forms have shown to be high-performance capacitive electrode materials for application in supercapacitors (SCs) due to their large specific surface area, distinct porous structure, and low cost; however, their practical applications are being largely hampered due to their powdery status-related issues including tedious electrode assembly process and insufficient capacitance and cycling stability. Herein, we develop a porous carbon membrane, termed as PECM, by direct carbonization of Pleurotus eryngii (PE) using KOH as activator. The as-fabricated PECM features a hierarchically nanostructure with high porosity, large specific surface area, and excellent electrolyte wettability, which cannot only afford a large usable active area for the interfacial adsorption of electrolyte ions but also supply fast diffusion pathways for electrolyte ions. Moreover, the as-fabricated PECM is doped with N and also has large amounts of O, S, and P-containing functional groups, which would be expected to contribute additional pseudocapacitance. More importantly, the as-fabricated PECM has excellent mechanical performance and can be directly used to assembly an aqueous symmetric SC device. Attributing to the above structural merits of PECM, the two-electrode symmetric SC assembled using two identical PECM-800 electrodes (~20 mg cm−2 for each electrode), exhibits excellent electrochemical performance with ultrahigh areal capacitance (4.6 F cm−2 at 10 mA cm−2), excellent long-term cycling stability (113% capacitance retention after 20 000 cycles), and superior energy densities of 0.24 to 0.09 mWh cm−2 at power densities of 5.20 to 51.9 mW cm−2. This work offers a new insight on employing biomass to prepare value-added and practically applicable carbon materials for the application in SCs.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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