Waste particleboard-derived nitrogen-containing activated carbon through KOH activation for supercapacitors

A simple and scalable method to fabricate enriched-nitrogen activated carbons (3.11–1.19 wt.%) by direct heat treatments of waste particleboards for high-performance supercapacitors was presented in this paper. The effects of the activation temperature on the textural properties and capacitive performance of the nitrogen-containing activated waste particleboard carbons (N-AWPCs) were analyzed. The N-AWPC prepared at 800 °C (N-AWPC800) show high specific surface areas, suitable pore size distributions and nitrogen content, all of which are essential for achieving high electrochemical performances as supercapacitor electrodes. The symmetric supercapacitor based on N-AWPC800 offers a specific capacitance of 263 and 119 F g−1 at a current density of 0.05 A g−1 use 7 M KOH and 1 M tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborate in propylene carbonate (TEMA-BF4/PC) as the electrolyte, respectively. The supercapacitor delivers high energy densities of 9.1–7.9 Wh kg−1 under the power outputs of 15.6–2855.3 W kg−1 in 7 M KOH and of 25.8–18.9 Wh kg−1 under the power outputs of 18.6–3894.4 W kg−1 in 1 M TEMA-BF4/PC.