(361b) N-Doped Material for Supercapacitor from Lignin Biomass

N-doped material for supercapacitor from lignin biomass

Muslum Demir¹, Ahmed A. Farghaly², Burak Aksoy³, Timur Islamoglu², Harry T. Cullinan³, Hani M. El-Kaderi², Maryanne M Collinson² and Ram B. Gupta^1,

^{1)       Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284}

^{2)        Department of Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284}

^{3)       Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849}Abstract Abstract

Lignin is a high volume byproduct produced from the pulp and paper industry. Most of lignin is currently burned to generate electricity. The industry has been searching for high value added usage of lignin to improve the process economics. . On the other hand, sustainable energy supplies depends on the progress of green technologies needs to be developed urgently which can be achieved via  environmentally friendly approaches with  inexpensive precursors and rich resources obtained from bio-mass. These materials has recently been employed in the field of energy such as fuel cells and supercapacitors In this work, lignin biomass which is a cross-linked polymer of phenols is converted into N-doped porous carbon using a two-step conversion process.  Lignin is first converted into biochar via hydrothermal carbonization at 300 °C and 1500 psi using very unique reactor which is capable of applying sonication to biomass at high T,P. Then, N-doped porous carbons were obtained by mixing biochar with a nitrogen rich source and ZnCl₂ at high temperture (700-1000 °C) and under an inert atmosphere at 15 psi. N-doped porous carbons effectiveness of three different temperature is examined like morphology, thermal stability, surface properties. The morphology, thermal stability, and surface properties of the as-prepared N-doped porous carbons at different temperatures (700, 850 and 1000 °C) were examined. The capacitive characteristics of the as-prepared materials are investigated with cyclic voltammetry (CV) at 1 mV to 500 mV. N-doped porous carbon prepared at 850 °C demonstrated the highest capacitance among the different samples (280 F/g at 1 mV CV).