Low-cost, green synthesis of highly porous carbons derived from lotus root shell as superior performance electrode materials in supercapacitor

Facile production of high quality activated carbons from biomass materials has greatly triggered much attention presently. In this paper, a series of interconnected porous carbon materials from lotus root shells biomass are prepared via simple pyrolysis and followed by a KOH activation process. The prepared carbons exhibit high specific surface areas of up to 2961 m²/g and large pore volume ∼1.47 cm³/g. In addition, the resultant porous carbons served as electrode materials in supercapacitor exhibit high specific capacitance and outstanding recycling stability and high energy density. In particular, their specific capacitance retention was almost 100% after 10500 cycles at a current density of 2 A/g. Remarkabely, the impact of the tailored specific surface areas of various carbon samples on their capacitive performances is systematically investigated. Generally, it was believed that the highly-developed porosity features (including surface areas and pore volume and pore size-distributions), together with the good conductivity of activated carbon species, play a key role in effectively improving the storage energy performances of the porous carbon electrode materials in supercapacitor.