Production of Biochar Based Porous Carbon Nanofibers for High-Performance Supercapacitor Applications

Biomass-derived biochar was used as the precursor to synthesize porous carbons for supercapacitor electrodes. The biochar was first activated with KOH to generate porous carbon material and then fabricated into highly flexible porous carbon nanofibers (ECNF) by electrospinning technique. Activated carbons with a surface area of around 2258 m 2 /g were found. The resultant biochar based ECNF mats exhibited outstanding mechanical flexibility and electrochemical properties as free-stranding and binder free electrodes of supercapacitor. The PAN/BCK3 ECNFs, which were made from the composite of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and KOH-activated biochar (mass ratio of Biochar/KOH =1:3) exhibited the highest gravimetric capacitance (108 F/g at current density of 0.5 A/g) with high retention (96% at 1 A/g) due to its well-developed micro-mesoporosity. The results indicated that biomass-derived biochar is a promising material which can be used for the production of low cost high performance electrode materials for supercapacitor.  Citation:  Xiu, S., Gbewonyob, S., Shahbazi, A., and Zhang, L. (2019). Production of Biochar Based Porous Carbon Nanofibers for High-Performance Supercapacitor Applications. Trends in Renewable Energy, 5, 151-164. DOI: 10.17737/tre.2019.5.2.0095