Corn stover-derived porous carbon for asymmetric supercapacitors

In this investigation, hydrothermal liquefaction-derived hydrochar from pulverized corn stover (avg. particle size 1.12 mm and ash content 6.75 wt%) is chemically activated with aqueous KOH in the presence of Pluronic F127 surfactant and thermally treated further up to 800 & DEG;C to generate porous carbon (POC) with higher specific surface area and porosity. POC obtained under different processing conditions is thoroughly characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analyzer, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Metallic impurity present in POC is characterized by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Higher specific surface area POC is observed with the use of the surfactant during the activation process. Fully characterized POC is used with (Mn, Ti)-mixed oxide electrode to fabricate asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC). Specific capacitance of ASC is measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique using Gamry G-300 potentiostat/galvanostat/ZRA. CV plots are obtained with different voltage scan rates whereas galvanostatic charge-discharge plots are studied by varying the current density. Renewable corn stover-derived POC prepared using Pluronic F127/KOH activation method is found to be highly suitable as an electrode material because of higher capacitance and electrochemical stability over 100 charging-discharging cycles.