Hierarchical porous carbon with ultrahigh surface area from corn leaf for high-performance supercapacitors application

A new class of hierarchical porous carbon (HPC) with ultrahigh surface area is successfully fabricated by carefully selecting biomass carbon precursors and activation reagent, through which corn leaf (CL) with natural well-defined macropore channels is used as the carbon precursor, and H3PO4 is used as the active agent by virtue of its pore-widening effect. The as-prepared CL-based HPC (CLHPC) with a H3PO4/semi-carbonized CL mass ratio of 2 (CLHPC-2) demonstrates the highest specific surface area of 2507 m(2) g(-1) donated by 28.3% of micropore and 71.6% of mesopore, while maintaining the channel-like macroporous structure derived from the well-defined natural structure in CL. The combination of the hierarchical porous structure and ultrahigh surface area enables rapid electrolyte diffusion and sufficient active sites for charge accumulation. As a result, CLHPC-2 exhibits excellent electrochemical performance, such as high specific capacitance of 230 F g(-1) at the current density of 0.1 A g(-1), excellent high-rate capability (retention of 91% from 0.1 to 5 A g(-1)), and good cycling stability (99% capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles).