Porous carbons have been widely applied for capacitive energy storage, yet usually suffer from insufficient rate performance because of the sluggish ion transport kinetics in deep and multi-branched pores. Herein, we fabricated an interconnected microporous capacitive carbon (IMCC) by growing D (+)-glucosamine on bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers scaffold, followed by carbonization and activation. The BC nanofibers acted as a sacrificial template during pre-carbonization, facilitating the subsequent KOH permeation and homogeneous activation. By taking advantage of the interconnected microporous structure, the IMCC delivers a high capacitance of 302 F g-1 at 1 A g-1 and an excellent rate capability of 165 F g-1 at 100 A g-1 for aqueous supercapacitor, demonstrating its fast ion transport capability. Impressively, it also shows a superior gravimetric capacity of 177 mAh g-1 at 0.5 A g-1 and remains a high value of 72 mAh g-1 at 20 A g-1 as a cathode material for Zn-ion hybrid capacitor. This facile and cost-effective design strategy exhibits a great potential to construct carbohydrates-derived interconnected microporous carbon materials for high-rate energy storage.
Keywords: Bacterial cellulose nanofibers; Homogeneous activation; Interconnected microporous structure; Supercapacitor; Zn-ion hybrid capacitor.
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