Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Award Date

2017

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department / School

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

First Advisor

Zhengrong Gu

Keywords

graphene, plasma, porous carbon, supercapacitors

Abstract

Supercapacitors have received considerable attention due to their high energy density, long life time, rapid charge/discharge rate, and because they are environmental friendly technology. Electrode materials play a key role in the final performance of supercapacitors. Carbon, usually used as symmetric supercapacitors electrode materials, exhibit extraordinary stability in harsh electrolyte and electrochemical performance owing to its physical and chemical properties. In addition, porous structure originated from activation, excellent electrical conductivity, sustainability, wide availability and low cost further offering the improvement in electrochemical performance and make it to be a promising electrode material for symmetric supercapacitors. Considering the factors affected electrochemical performance, such as surface area, pore size and functional groups, several carbon materials are developed and used as high performance symmetric supercapacitors electrodes. In this work, porous carbon derived from different biomass are prepared via catalytic graphitization, KOH activation, and plasma treatment. Depending on detailed physical characterizations, porous structure with high surface area and porosity are presented for prepared carbon materials, which serves as reservoir and ion channels for electrolyte and consequently resulted in high capacitance performance for assembled supercapacitors evaluated by electrochemical measurements.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Supercapacitors.
Electrodes, Carbon.
Porous materials.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-170)

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

183

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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Rights Statement

In Copyright