Study of electrochemical properties of activated carbon electrode synthesized using bio-waste for supercapacitor applications

In the present work, the precursor performance of Datura stramonium as bioresource material was studied for its electrochemical applications. Datura stramonium commonly known as thornapple or jimsonweeds is a wild and medicinal shrub belonging to the Solanaceae family, containing tropane alkaloids. Datura stramonium stem was used to synthesize porous activated carbon as an electrode material to check their performance in electric double-layer supercapacitor. The prepared activated carbon was investigated for the crystal structure, presence of functional groups, and textural properties using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and N 2 adsorption-desorption isotherm. The study revealed that activated carbon is microporous in nature and showed BET surface areas of 703 m 2 /g. The energy-dispersive X-ray (EDAX) spectrum of DSSC sample clearly showed the presence of carbon (67.53 at%) and oxygen (25.63 at%). The presence of elemental chemical composition was further confirmed by XPS analysis. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) was performed to study capacitive behavior of the synthesized activated carbon. The maximum calculated value of specific capacitance (C s ) was found to be 81 F/g for one electrode at current density of 1 A/g. Thus, prepared novel material proves to be an excellent electrode material for energy storage devices.