Biomass-derived porous carbon materials: synthesis, designing, and applications for supercapacitors

Since the industrial revolution, modern society has experienced rapid technological development, which has greatly increased the demand for energy, and cheap energy for production will be more and more difficult to obtain. In the past decades, energy depletion and environmental pollution have attracted people's attention, and prompted people to explore advanced and green energy storage and conversion technologies. Supercapacitors have attracted extensive attention due to their great potential to meet the requirements of high energy density and high power density, but their excellent performance largely depends on the development of advanced electrode materials. Carbon materials are widely used in supercapacitors, but the preparation of high-performance carbon materials still needs harsh conditions. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop effective methods to produce high-performance carbon materials with limited environmental impact by using renewable resources. Biomass is an important precursor of carbon materials due to its unique structure, abundant resources, biodegradability and low cost. Porous carbons transformed from biomass as a new type of high-performance sustainable material have attracted extensive attention due to the advantages, such as good porosity, large specific surface area, good graphitization degree, etc. Although there have been many studies and summaries on porous carbon materials transformed from biomass, improvements and additions are still needed. This paper further summarizes the latest progress of biomass-derived porous carbon materials in the field of supercapacitors, and the preparation methods of biomass-based porous carbon materials are newly classified from the perspective of the preparation process. Secondly, the design methods and strategies of high-performance biomass-based porous carbon materials are analyzed in detail. The application of biomass-based porous carbon materials in advanced supercapacitors is reviewed. Finally, the challenges and prospects for the future development of biomass-based carbon materials are discussed. This review shows the great potential of high-performance biomass-based porous carbon materials, provides good design ideas for their application in the field of high-performance supercapacitors, and is expected to stimulate new discoveries and promote the practical application of biomass-based porous carbon materials in the field of more energy storage and conversion.