Pork-Derived Porous Carbon for Supercapacitors: Achieving “Near-Zero-Loss” and Ultralong Cycle Life

Abstract

While biomass-derived carbon materials have been extensively explored in the field of energy storage, research focusing on animal protein as a precursor remains relatively scarce, and its potential value is yet to be fully exploited. In this study, oxygen-rich protein-based biomass porous carbons were prepared using pork as the raw material and phosphate distarch as the additive via a strategy involving compositing, subsequent carbonization, and KOH activation. Among these carbons, sample APE-2 possessed a high oxygen content of 9.81%, a hierarchical micromesoporous structure dominated by micropores, specific surface area (SSA) per unit amount of 1599 m² g^–1, and pore volume at 0.692 cm³ g^–1. Under a three-electrode cell where 6 M KOH functions as the electrolyte, it demonstrated an excellent reversible specific capacitance of 565 F g^–1 under 1 A g^–1 as well as outstanding rate capability, maintaining a specific capacitance of 474 F g^–1 even at 35 A g^–1. When utilized as electrode materials to assemble symmetric supercapacitors (SCs) using 6 M KOH, it achieved a prominent reversible specific capacitive performance at 250 F g^–1 under 0.5 A g^–1 as well as remained at 143 F g^–1 under 20 A g^–1. It also exhibits an ultrastable cycling behavior with nearly “zero decay” as evidenced by a capacitance retention of 99.7% after 20,000 cycles.