From coconut shell to porous graphene-like nanosheets for high-power supercapacitors

Sheet-like graphitic carbon with a porous structure can provide low-resistant pathways and short ion-diffusion channels for energy storage, and thus is expected to be an excellent material for high-power supercapacitors. Herein, porous graphene-like nanosheets (PGNSs) with a large surface area were synthesized for the first time via an easy and cost-effective SAG (simultaneous activation–graphitization) route from renewable biomass waste coconut shell. In the synthesis, the graphitic catalyst precursor (FeCl3) and activating agent (ZnCl2) were introduced simultaneously into the skeleton of the coconut shell through coordination of the metal precursor with the functional groups in the coconut shell, thus making…