Recent Progress of Biomass-Derived Carbon for Supercapacitors: A Review

Carbon materials are very important for the commercial production of supercapacitors and they are crucial electrode materials. The porous carbon prepared with biomass materials as a precursor is of significance due to its sustainability, environmental friendliness, and low cost. Biomass-derived carbon (BDC) has been widely investigated and reported as the electrode of supercapacitors due to its abundant pores and high surface areas. In this work, the recent advancement of BDC for supercapacitors in the last three years is reviewed. The energy storage mechanism, synthesis techniques, and biomass classification of BDC are briefly summarized at the beginning of this work. Some new typical cases with different biomass resources as raw materials are addressed. Then, effective strategies to further improve the specific capacitance of BDC, including heteroatoms doping, designing composites, novel processes, enhancing graphitic degree, and unique preparation methods, are discussed in detail. Finally, the challenges and future perspectives of porous BDC for supercapacitors are outlined.