Waste particleboard-derived nitrogen-containing activated carbon through KOH activation for supercapacitors

A simple and scalable method to fabricate enriched-nitrogen activated carbons (3.11-1.19 wt.%) by direct heat treatments of waste particleboards for high-performance supercapacitors was presented in this paper. The effects of the activation temperature on the textural properties and capacitive performance of the nitrogen-containing activated waste particleboard carbons (N-AWPCs) were analyzed. The N-AWPC prepared at 800 A degrees C (N-AWPC800) show high specific surface areas, suitable pore size distributions and nitrogen content, all of which are essential for achieving high electrochemical performances as supercapacitor electrodes. The symmetric supercapacitor based on N-AWPC800 offers a specific capacitance of 263 and 119 F g(-1) at a current density of 0.05 A g(-1) use 7 M KOH and 1 M tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate in propylene carbonate (TEMA-BF4/PC) as the electrolyte, respectively. The supercapacitor delivers high energy densities of 9.1-7.9 Wh kg(-1) under the power outputs of 15.6-2855.3 W kg(-1) in 7 M KOH and of 25.8-18.9 Wh kg(-1) under the power outputs of 18.6-3894.4 W kg(-1) in 1 M TEMA-BF4/PC.