Three-dimensional porous carbon is considered as an ideal electrode material for supercapacitors (SCs) applications owing to its good conductivity, developed pore structure, and excellent connectivity. Herein, using longan shell as precursor, 3-dimensional porous carbon with abundant and interconnected pores and moderate heteroatoms were obtained via simple carbonization and potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation treatment. The electrochemical performances of obtained 3-dimensional porous carbon were investigated as electrode materials in symmetric SCs with aqueous and solid electrolytes. The optimized material that is named after longan shell 3-dimensional porous carbon 800 (LSPC800) possesses high porosity (1.644 cm3 g-1) and N content (1.14 at %). In the three-electrode measurement, the LSPC800 displays an excellent capacitance value of 359 F g-1. Besides, the LSPC800 also achieves splendid specific capacitance (254 F g-1) in the two electrode system, while the fabricated SC employing 1 M Li2SO4 as electrolyte acquires ultrahigh power density (15930.38 W kg-1). Most importantly, LSPC800 electrodes are further applied into the SC adopting the KOH/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gel electrolyte, which reaches up to an outstanding capacitance of 313 F g-1 at 0.5 A g-1. In addition, for the all-solid-state SC, its rate capability at 50 A g-1 is 72.73% and retention at the 10,000th run is 93.64%. Evidently, this work is of great significance to the simple fabrication of 3-dimensional porous carbon and further opens up a way of improving the value-added utilization of biomass materials, as well as proving that the biomass porous carbons have immense potential for high-performance SCs application.
Keywords: 3-dimensional porous carbon; all-solid-state supercapacitors; biomass; high nitrogen content.