Waste peanut shells derived activated carbon for dual electrochemical applications

In recent scenarios, plenty of research has been conducted on porous activated carbon derived from biowaste precursors. The well-developed surface area and porous nature of biowaste-derived activated carbon material make them good candidates for electrochemical devices to use as electrode material. In the present work, we have used waste peanut shells (W.P.) as a precursor material to derive large surface area activated carbon. Chemical activation is used to activate the activated carbon, for which ZnCl2 is used as an activating agent. The waste peanut shell-derived activated carbon (WPAC) is studied via XRD, FESEM, and BET. Prepared carbon shows a large BET surface area of 1366 m2 g-1 and a well-developed pore structure; the presence of pores is also confirmed by FESEM images. A solid-state supercapacitor is also fabricated using waste peanut shell-based activated carbon and ionic liquid-based polymer electrolyte. The EDLC is further studied using electrochemical characterizations such as CV, EIS, and GCD. The EIS study found that the WPAC-based EDLC cell shows a specific capacitance of 25 F/g at 10 mHz. A DSSC is also fabricated using the WPAC on the counter electrode, and it shows an efficiency of 0.96% with a fill factor of 27.79.