Nitrogen self-doped activated carbons the direct activation of leaves for high energy density supercapacitors.

In this study, nitrogen self-doped activated carbons (ACs) obtained the direct activation of green leaves (SSLs) for high energy density supercapacitors were investigated. The SSL-derived direct-activated carbons (hereinafter referred to SD-ACs) were synthesized by impregnating sodium hydroxide as an activating agent and heating up to 720 °C without a hydrothermal carbonization or pyrolysis step. The optimum condition was investigated by varying the weight ratio of raw SSLs to NaOH. Surpassing the ACs derived from the two-step convention method, SD-ACs showed superior properties, including a higher surface area (2930 m g), total pore volume (1.37 cm g) and nitrogen content (4.6 at%). Moreover, SD-ACs exhibited enhanced electrochemical properties with specific gravimetric and volumetric capacitances of 179 F g and 88 F cm in an organic electrolyte, respectively, a high capacitance retention of approximately 87% at a current density of 0.5 A g and excellent cycling stability of 97.5% after 3000 cycles at a current density of 5 A g. Moreover, the potential window of the supercapacitor cell was extended to 3.5 V with a significantly enhanced energy density of up to 79 W h kg. These results demonstrate that the direct activation of nitrogen-enriched SSLs offers advantages in terms of simplicity, low-cost and sustainable synthetic route to achieve nitrogen self-doped ACs for high energy density supercapacitors, which exhibit superior properties to that of ACs prepared the conventional method.