The synthesis of activated carbon made from banana stem fibers as the supercapacitor electrodes
Erman Taer (a*), Deris Afdal Yusra (a), Amun Amri (b), Awitdrus (a), Rika Taslim (c), Apriwandi (a), Agustino (a), Aldila Putri (a)
a)Department of Physics, University of Riau, 28293 Simpang Baru, Riau, Indonesia
*erman.taer[at]yahoo.com
b)Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Riau, 28293 Simpang Baru, Riau, Indonesia
c)Department of Industrial Engineering, State Islamic University of Sultan Syarif Kasim, 28293 Simpang Baru, Riau, Indonesia
Abstract
The activated carbon without addition of adhesive materials from banana stem fibers have been successfully synthesized by using ZnCl2 activator as a supercapacitor electrodes. The physical properties analysis such as density, surface morphology, degree of crystallinity, elemental content, surface area of the activated carbon electrode was carried out by using measurements of mass and volume, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and Brunaeur-Emmet-Teller (BET). The carbon electrode have a density of 0.627 g cm-3, surface morphology consists of carbon particles and carbon fiber, amorphous structures seen in scattering (2Ɵ) angle range of 23.588˚ and 44.411˚ for d002 and d100 diffraction planes, carbon content reaches as high as100% and the specific surface area was found 788,091 m2 g-1. The electrochemical properties were analyzed by using cyclic voltammetry method with 2 electrodes system in 1 M H2SO4 electrolyte solution. The specific capacitance, energy density, and power density of the supercapacitor cells were 178.545 F g-1, 6.19 Wh kg-1, and 44.6661 W kg-1 respectively. This study exhibit that banana stem fibers potentially to be developed as carbon electrodes in supercapacitor cell.
Keywords: carbon fiber; ZnCl2 activator; supercapacitor
Topic: Functional Materials