Abstract
One of the most challenging issues that restrict the biomass/waste-based nanocarbons in supercapacitor application is the poor structural inheritability during the activating process. Herein, we prepare a class of activated carbon fibers by carefully selecting waste cotton glove (CG) as the precursor, which mainly consists of cellulose fibers that can be transformed to carbon along with good inheritability of their fiber morphology upon activation. As prepared, the CG-based activated carbon fiber (CGACF) demonstrates a surface area of 1435 m2 g−1 contributed by micropores of 1.3 nm and small mesopores of 2.7 nm, while the fiber morphology can be well inherited from the CG with 3D interconnected frameworks created on the fiber surface. This hierarchically porous structure and well-retained fiber-like skeleton can simultaneously minimize the diffusion/transfer resistance of the electrolyte and electron, respectively, and maximize the surface area utilization for charge accumulation. Consequently, CGACF presents a higher specific capacitance of 218 F g−1 and an excellent high-rate performance as compared to commercial activated carbon.
Highlights
Porous carbon material (PCM)-based supercapacitors have triggered increasing interest during the past decades by virtue of their high power density, fast charge-discharge rate, and long cycling stability [1–10]
Numerous efforts have been devoted to exploring novel biomass/waste-based activated PCMs (APCMs) for further improving their supercapacitive performance, such as cigarette filter, cigarette ash, tea leaves, human hair, and fish scale [25–28] a relatively large surface area can be obtained for electric double-layer formation during the activating process, such APCMs are usually lack of meso/macroporosity for electrolyte diffusion/transfer owing to the bulk nanostructure of the biomass/waste precursors and/or the poor structural inheritability during the activating process
The cotton glove (CG)-based activated carbon fiber (CGACF) demonstrates a surface area of 1435 m2 g−1 donated by micropores of 1.3 nm and small mesopores of 2.7 nm, while the fiber morphology can be well inherited from the CG with a 3D interconnected frameworks created on the fiber surface
Summary
Porous carbon material (PCM)-based supercapacitors have triggered increasing interest during the past decades by virtue of their high power density, fast charge-discharge rate, and long cycling stability [1–10]. This relatively low electrolyte diffusion/transfer efficiency usually results in low surface area utilization, under high current densities.
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