Electrochemical Studies on Tamarindus indica Fruit Shell Bio-Waste Derived Nanoporous Activated Carbons for Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

Supercapacitors are perfect energy storage devices; they can be charged almost instantly and release energy over a long period. Another advantage of using supercapacitors is their multipletimes chargeable behavior with minimum degradation in performance. Herein, we report the nanoporous activated carbon based modified electrodes prepared by using phosphoric acid (PA) activation method at different temperatures (600, 700, 800, and 900 °C) using bio-waste precursor, Tamarindus indica (T. indica) fruit shell. Because of their excellent energy storage capacity, in the present work, supercapacitive behavior of the nanoporous activated carbon based modified electrode has been demonstrated and hence the electrochemical properties of the developed supercapacitor electrodes are analyzed using cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge–discharge measurements, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and cycling studies using 1 M KOH as the electrolyte. The developed supercapacitor nanoporous activated carbon materials are characterized by X-ray diffraction, functional group analysis, surface area and morphological studies.