Hetero-Porous, High-Surface Area Green Carbon Aerogels for the Next-Generation Energy Storage Applications
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Division of Materials Science, Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden
2
Mechanical & Industrial Engineering (MIE), University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Byoung-Suhk Kim and Pablo Guardia
Nanomaterials 2021, 11(3), 653; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11030653
Received: 30 January 2021
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Revised: 23 February 2021
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Accepted: 26 February 2021
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Published: 8 March 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Nanomaterials for Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion Applications)
Various carbon materials have been developed for energy storage applications to address the increasing energy demand in the world. However, the environmentally friendly, renewable, and nontoxic bio-based carbon resources have not been extensively investigated towards high-performance energy storage materials. Here, we report an anisotropic, hetero-porous, high-surface area carbon aerogel prepared from renewable resources achieving an excellent electrical double-layer capacitance. Two different green, abundant, and carbon-rich lignins which can be extracted from various biomasses, have been selected as raw materials, i.e., kraft and soda lignins, resulting in clearly distinct physical, structural as well as electrochemical characteristics of the carbon aerogels after carbonization. The obtained green carbon aerogel based on kraft lignin not only demonstrates a competitive specific capacitance as high as 163 F g−1 and energy density of 5.67 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 50 W kg−1 when assembled as a two-electrode symmetric supercapacitor, but also shows outstanding compressive mechanical properties. This reveals the great potential of the carbon aerogels developed in this study for the next-generation energy storage applications requiring green and renewable resources, lightweight, robust storage ability, and reliable mechanical integrity.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Thomas, B.; Geng, S.; Sain, M.; Oksman, K. Hetero-Porous, High-Surface Area Green Carbon Aerogels for the Next-Generation Energy Storage Applications. Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 653. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11030653
AMA Style
Thomas B, Geng S, Sain M, Oksman K. Hetero-Porous, High-Surface Area Green Carbon Aerogels for the Next-Generation Energy Storage Applications. Nanomaterials. 2021; 11(3):653. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11030653
Chicago/Turabian StyleThomas, Bony, Shiyu Geng, Mohini Sain, and Kristiina Oksman. 2021. "Hetero-Porous, High-Surface Area Green Carbon Aerogels for the Next-Generation Energy Storage Applications" Nanomaterials 11, no. 3: 653. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11030653
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