ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
5 years ago

Popcorn-Derived Porous Carbon Flakes with an Ultrahigh Specific Surface Area for Superior Performance Supercapacitors

Popcorn-Derived Porous Carbon Flakes with an Ultrahigh Specific Surface Area for Superior Performance Supercapacitors
Xiaozhi Wang, Ming Shen, Muhammad Tahir, Chuanbao Cao, Xiaoge Wu, Kun Jiang, Jianhua Hou, Rui Wei
Popcorn-derived porous carbon flakes have been successfully fabricated from the biomass of maize. Utilizing the “puffing effect”, the nubby maize grain turned into materials with an interconnected honeycomb-like porous structure composed of carbon flakes. The following chemical activation method enabled the as-prepared products to possess optimized porous structures for electrochemical energy-storage devices, such as multilayer flake-like structures, ultrahigh specific surface area (SBET: 3301 m2 g–1), and a high content of micropores (microporous surface area of 95%, especially the optimized sub-nanopores with the size of 0.69 nm) that can increase the specific capacitance. The as-obtained sample displayed excellent specific capacitance of 286 F g–1 at 90 A g–1 for supercapacitors. Moreover, the unique porous structure demonstrated an ideal way to improve the volumetric energy density performance. A high energy density of 103 Wh kg–1 or 53 Wh L–1 has been obtained in the case of ionic liquid electrolyte, which is the highest among reported biomass-derived carbon materials and will satisfy the urgent requirements of a primary power source for electric vehicles. This work may prove to be a fast, green, and large-scale synthesis route by using the large nubby granular materials to synthesize applicable porous carbons in energy-storage devices.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.7b07746

DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b07746

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