Carbonization of agricultural biomass for supercapacitor production

The aim of this study is to convert industrial agricultural origin biomass by using hydrothermal carbonization method to carbon-based material having high conductivity for use in supercapacitor production by using different activating chemicals. Hydrothermal carbonization was applied to different biomass samples. The elemental analysis of the obtained biochar was carried out and it was determined that the highest source of biomass was corn cob. The determined biochar has been chemically activated with different chemicals such as KOH, NaOH, H3PO4 and ZnCl2. Advanced carbonization of activated biochar was carried out at 500, 600, 700 and 800 °C and 1, 1.5 and 2 hours retention times. The resulting carbon based products were mixed with KBr and identical identical pellets were prepared and their electrical conductivity values were measured. Electrical conductivity results, NaOH-800 °C-2s and ZnCl2-700 °C-1.5s obtained from the process prepared from the biocidal pellets were determined to have the highest conductivity value. BET and SEM analyzes of the samples with the highest conductivity values were performed and surface morphologies were examined.