Highly porous carbon material from polycyclodextrin for high-performance supercapacitor electrode

Using low-cost biomass to develop ultra-high specific surface area carbon electrode materials for supercapacitors is very important, but it is still challenging. In this paper, using the bottom-up idea and starting from the hydrolysate of starch, highly porous carbon material is fabricated by simple polymerization of beta-cyclodextrin (CD) and chemical activation. The obtained material shows a maximum specific surface area (SSA) up to 3710 m2 g(-1) and pore volume of 2.03 cm(3) g(-1). Thanks to the hierarchical porous structure and ultra-high specific surface area, the carbon based supercapacitors demonstrates high capacitance of 416 F g(-1) at 0.5 A g(-1) and excellent cycling stability of 100 % capacity retention after 10,000 cycles in 6.0 M KOH electrolyte system. Furthermore, an attractive energy density of 23.4 Wh kg-1 at a power density of 224.9 W kg-1 in 1.8 V Na2SO4 electrolyte system can be delivered. The polycyclic dextrin based porous carbon reported in this paper has better electro-chemical performance than most carbon based electrode materials reported today, which provides a feasible synthetic method for the synthesis of excellent supercapacitor electrode materials.

Automated summary

In this paper, a highly porous carbon material is fabricated using low-cost biomass through simple polymerization and chemical activation, demonstrating ultra-high specific surface area and excellent electrochemical performance. This provides a feasible method for synthesizing excellent supercapacitor electrode materials.