Honeycomb-like carbon with tunable pore size from bio-oil

Honeycomb-like carbon with tunable pore size from bio-oil for supercapacitorwww.wyactivatedcarbon.com
As an emerging carbon precursor, bio-oil, consisting of numerous aromatic hydrocarbons and polycyclic carbon compounds, is the liquid derived from waste biomass pyrolysis. In this study, we adopt a facile and effective strategy with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as pore-adjusting agents, and coupled with chemical activation and Ni2+ catalyzed graphitization to prepare bio-oil derived hierarchical porous carbon. The mesopore size of carbon material can be controlled by the size of macromolecular polymers by hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions between CTAB micelles and the oxygen-containing groups contained in bio-oil. Furthermore, increasing the CTAB amount enlarges pore size distribution from microporosity dominated to a wide range of 2–32 nm with increased specific surface area from 775 to 1302 m2 g−1. The resulting honeycomb-like carbon exhibits high specific capacitance as well as superior rate capability and excellent cycling stability. honeycomb activated carbonThis work is believed to inspire the practical application of bio-oil and open up a new possibility to the pore engineering of biochar electrodes for energy storage and conversion.