A high energy flexible symmetric supercapacitor fabricated using N-doped activated carbon derived from palm flowers

Abstract

Nitrogen doped activated carbons of high surface area are synthesized using palm flower biomaterial by KOH activation followed by pyrolysis. The concentration of the activating agent KOH and carbonization temperature are found to be crucial to obtain high surface area activated carbon. The optimal concentration of KOH and carbonization temperature for the synthesis of activated carbon, respectively, are 2 M and 800 °C in the flow of nitrogen gas. The optimized conditions have been employed to further prepare nitrogen doped activated carbon (NAC) by varying the weight ratio of palm flowers to melamine. All activated carbons are characterized by powder XRD, BET analysis, RAMAN spectroscopy, HR-SEM analysis, HR-TEM analysis and FT-IR analysis. With 2 wt% nitrogen doping, the BET surface area and pore diameter of the NAC-2 sample are 1054 m² g⁻¹ and 1.9 nm, respectively. The electrochemical charge storage performance of the nitrogen doped activated carbons has been evaluated in an aqueous acidic electrolyte medium. The results indicate that among the nitrogen doped activated carbons, the NAC-2 sample exhibits the highest electrochemical capacitance of 296 F g⁻¹ at 0.5 A g⁻¹. The performance of the NAC-2 electrode is further tested in aqueous, ionic liquid and solid polymer electrolytes by assembling a symmetric capacitor for real time application. By employing an ionic liquid as the electrolyte, the device delivers an energy density of 8.6 Wh kg⁻¹ and a power density of 38.9 W kg⁻¹ in the voltage window of 1.5 V and at an operating current density of 0.1 A g⁻¹. Interestingly, the NAC-2 electrode shows good cycling performance in the ionic liquid electrolyte (up to 50k cycles). Furthermore, the symmetric device in 0.1 M H₂SO₄/PVA solid state electrolyte shows excellent electrochemical stability under various bending angles, demonstrating its potential in flexible electronic devices.