A facile approach to prepare biomass-derived activated carbon hollow fibers from wood waste as high-performance supercapacitor electrodes

Abstract

In this paper, several activated carbon hollow fibers (ACHF) with high surface area of ~ 1873 m2 g−1 were prepared from wood waste by liquefaction, half-curing and one-step activation methods. Scanning electron microscopy, Nitrogen gas adsorption–desorption and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been used to characterize the morphology, the structure and the composition of ACHF. Results show added wood charcoal had a noticeable influence on the pore structure and electrochemical performance of ACHF. Electrochemical investigation measurements show that ACHF exhibit an outstanding specific capacitance (295 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1), excellent rate performance (73.8% capacitance retention at 20 A g−1), high energy density (7.8 W h kg−1) and high capacitance retention of 99.5% over 10,000 charge–discharge cycles. Moreover, the multiple heteroatoms (N, P) from wood liquefaction have a synergistic effect on electrochemical properties of ACHF. These results indicate the present method is promising for the preparation of biomass-derived activated carbon hollow fibers from agricultural and forestry waste in the application of supercapacitors.