posted on 2021-11-06, 15:43authored byBin Du, Lihui Huang, Ming Shen, Hui Zhou, Bin Wang, Zhongyue Deng, Liyuan Wang, Diandian Nie
Reed
flower (RF)-derived porous carbon-based electrodes are produced
with KOH as the activating agent and diethanolamine (DEA) as the additive
via a facile method without precarbonization. DEA with good wettability
can facilitate the permeation of KOH through plant tissues, thus enhancing
the KOH activation and increasing the specific surface area (SSA)
as well as the pore volume. In addition, DEA as a nitrogen-doping
agent can also increase the nitrogen content of carbon materials.
The porous carbon synthesized with DEA (RFAC-N) exhibits a significantly
larger SSA of 1691 m2 g–1, an evidently
higher pore volume of 1.08 m3 g–1, and
a higher N content (1.93 wt %) than that synthesized without DEA.
Examined in a symmetric two-electrode electrochemical test system
with KOH as the electrolyte, RFAC-N presents a high specific capacitance
(254.3 F g–1 at a current density of 1 A g–1), superb rate performance (192.7 F g–1 at 30 A
g–1), a high energy density of 9.40 Wh kg–1, good reversibility, and excellent long cycle stability (89.5% capacity
retention after 10,000 cycles at 10 A g–1). Possessing
impressive properties and performance, the N-doped biomass-derived
porous carbon materials with a high N content, as synthesized with
a facile method presented in this work, demonstrate their vast potential
in application in high-performance energy storage devices.