Oxygen/phosphorus co-doped porous carbon from cicada slough as high-performance electrode material for supercapacitors

Synthesizing high-performance electrode materials plays a vital role in fabricating advanced supercapacitors. Heteroatom doping has been proved to be effective in enhancing the electrochemical properties of carbon-based electrodes. Herein, we report an O, P co-doped porous carbon (PC) originated from waste biomaterials, cicada sloughs. The PC possesses meso-/microporous structure with a large specific surface area (1945 m(2).g(-1)) and a high O, P co-doping ratio of 18 wt%. These superior factors together enable it to deliver high specific capacitance (295 F.g(-1) in 6 M KOH and 291 F.g(-1) in 1 M H2SO4), good cycling stability (100% capacitance retention after 10000 cycles in 1 M H2SO4) and rate performance. Therefore, from the respects of environment friendliness and cost effectivity, obtaining heteroatom doped carbons from the nature might be better compared to pyrolyzing heteroatom-containing chemicals.