Nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon using biomass-derived activated carbon/carbonized polyaniline composites for supercapacitor electrodes

Biomass porous micro/nanostructures activated carbon materials have attracted tremendous attention in the field of energy storage due to their high specific surface area, excellent electrical conductivity, low cost and environmental benignity. In this paper, we innovatively use celery as a biomass carbon precursor to prepare nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon materials by activation, polymerization and carbonization. Prepared Celery-derived activated carbon is utilized to synthesize activated carbon/polyaniline composite material by wet-chemistry method and further carbonized to obtain nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon. The nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon materials are used as the active electrode materials for supercapacitors. It exhibits high specific capacitance of 402 F g−1 in 1 M H2SO4 electrolyte at 1 A g−1. After 10,000 GCD cycles, material still displays cycling stability of 97% capacitance retention. The outstanding electrochemical performance endows nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon with enormous prospects as a supercapacitor electrode material.