Investigation of H2SO4 and KOH aqueous electrolytes on the electrochemical performance of activated carbon derived from areca catechu husk

Abstract

Aqueous electrolytes have shown great interest in developing high performance and environmentally friendly supercapacitors. This work focuses on systematic investigations of the symmetrical properties of activated carbon electrode for supercapacitors in different aqueous electrolytes. Here, we compare the performance of supercapacitors using 1M KOH and 1M H2SO4 different electrolytes based on carbon monolith electrodes derived from areca catechu husk waste. Carbon electrodes were synthesized using single-step pyrolysis both carbonization and physical activation without the addition of synthetic adhesive materials. The electrochemical properties were evaluated based on the cyclic voltammetry method at voltage windows of 0-0.5V and 0-1.0V with a scanning rate of 1 mV s−1, 2 mV s−1, 5 mV s−1, and 10 mV s−1. The electrode supercapacitor showed the highest specific capacitance of 150 F g−1 and 112 F g−1 at a scanning rate of 1 mV s−1 for H2SO4 and KOH electrolytes respectively. The maximum specific energy was found as high as 20.97 Wh kg−1 and the specific power of 75.57 kW kg−1 at the voltage window of 0-1.0V were achieved for H2SO4 electrolytes. As addition, the physical properties of carbon electrode also characterized such as mass, volume, and density. This work provides consideration the selected of different aqueous electrolytes for high-performance supercapacitors.