Peony pollen derived nitrogen-doped activated carbon for supercapacitor application

Abstract Peony pollen is a cheap and readily available biomass material with a relatively high protein content. In this work, it was employed as an N-rich precursor to prepare the nitrogen-doped porous carbon for supercapacitor application. The porous carbon microspheres were prepared through a hydrothermal method and subsequent carbonization process. Notably, ammonium borofruoride and potassium hydroxide were employed respectively as an etchant and an activator to modify the porosity of the materials. The as prepared ANPPCs-700 has a super high BET specific surface area of 824.69 m2/g. The microstructure, chemical state and electrochemical properties of the product were investigated in detail. The prepared nitrogen-doped carbon microspheres exhibits excellent specific capacity of 209 F/g at a current density of 1A/g and remained 92.5% of the initial capacitance after 5000 deep cycles at 5A/g