Ultrasound-assisted fungal self-growth and heteroatom doping for the preparation of high-performance lignocellulose-based supercapacitor electrodes

Abstract

Biomass materials are widely used as supercapacitor electrode materials due to their cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness. In this work, ultrasound-assisted impregnation was employed for the thorough mixing of the liquid medium, and fungal treatment was conducted on the three main components of lignocellulose to prepare a fungi-modified heteroatom-doped lignocellulose-based carbon material (LCF-NP). The effects of heteroatom doping, the content of the three main components, and fungal modification on the electrochemical performance of lignocellulose-based carbon materials was investigated. The results revealed the synergistic effect of heteroatom doping and fungal treatment on the electrochemical performance. Compared with its counterpart free of fungal treatment, LCF-NP has a more reasonable pore structure and exhibits excellent electrochemical performance. LCF-NP porous carbon material has the highest specific surface area (792 m2/g), large pore volume (0.523 cm3/g), and ideal specific capacitance (1940 mF/cm2) under the conditions of 1.0 M Na2SO4 electrolyte and current density of 0.5 mA/cm2. After 10,000 cycles, there is almost no loss of capacitance. These results indicate that the joint utilization of heteroatom doping and fungal treatment has a promising application prospect in pore structure regulation and electrochemical performance improvement. This study provides a new strategy for the preparation of lignocellulose-based carbon electrode materials.