Preparation of Supercapacitor Carbon Electrode Materials by Low-Temperature Carbonization of High-Nitrogen-Doped Raw Materials from Food Waste

Abstract

To address the problem of the low nitrogen (N) content of carbon materials prepared through the direct carbonization of food waste, soybean meal and egg whites with high N contents were selected to carry out carbonization experiments on food waste. At 220 °C, the effects of hydrothermal carbonization and microwave carbonization on the properties of supercapacitor electrode materials were investigated. The results show that food waste doped with soybean meal and egg whites could achieve good N doping. At a current density of 1 A·g−1, the specific capacitance of the doped carbon prepared by hydrothermal doping is as high as 220.00 F·g−1, which is much greater than that of the raw material prepared through the hydrothermal carbonization of food waste alone, indicating that the hydrothermal carbonization reactions of soybean meal, egg white, and food waste promote the electrochemical properties of the prepared carbon materials well. However, when a variety of raw materials are mixed for pyrolysis carbonization, different raw materials cannot be fully mixed in the pyrolysis process, and under the etching action of potassium hydroxide, severe local etching and local nonetching occur, resulting in a severe increase in the pore size distribution and deterioration of the electrochemical performance of the prepared carbon materials. At a current density of 1 A·g−1, the specific capacitance of these prepared carbon materials is 157.70 F·g−1, whereas it is only 62.00 F·g−1 at a high current density of 20 A·g−1. Therefore, this study suggests that the hydrothermal carbonization process is superior to the microwave pyrolysis carbonization process for preparing supercapacitor electrode materials with multiple samples doped with each other.