A review on the recent progress of the plant-based porous carbon materials as electrodes for high-performance supercapacitors

Globally, environmental concerns and energy security uncertainties related to fossil fuels have resulted in a shift toward affordable, clean energy and renewable energy sources. Therefore, the energy storage systems are highly favorable as majority of the renewable energy sources are naturally intermittent. Furthermore, researchers globally have devoted significant efforts to develop energy storage devices such as lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors (SCs) using low-cost carbon electrode materials. Interestingly, carbonaceous materials, derived from non-renewable and non-sustainable graphite and fossil fuels, have been widely utilized in the development of SCs, although the fabrication approaches involved are often contaminative and hazardous. To overcome these challenges, a sustainable approach, namely green technology, was employed to produce AC from renewable biomass materials. Due to its attributes such as superior electrochemical stability, low cost, large specific surface area, abundant and sustainable with adjustable dimension, biomass-derived porous carbon materials have attracted remarkable attention in the field of electrochemistry of plants. Therefore, this review article discusses about the recent approaches taken to obtain porous carbon from biomass. In addition, the techniques associated with the fabrication of activated carbon (AC) from biomasses such as carbonization, pyrolysis, hydrothermal and activation methods, respectively, are deliberated along with their attributes and their significant influences on the electrochemical performance, electrical conductivity, chemical composition, microstructure and specific surface area. Moreover, the applications of the plant-based derived porous carbon materials in energy storages are discussed. Finally, the future perspective and research on the utilization of biomasses as precursors for production of porous carbon derivatives are presented. Graphical Abstract