Waste chicken bone-derived porous carbon materials as high performance electrode for supercapacitor applications

Cooked chicken bone waste (CCBW) has been traditionally used as the source of food for some animals like dogs in developing countries, all the same, it has never been reported as an energy storage material. In this study, CCBW has been successfully converted into carbon materials (activated carbon) through a simple and cost-effective activation process for supercapacitor applications. The influence of potassium hydroxide (KOH) as an activating agent/CCBW ratio was established by different characterization techniques and electrochemical investigation. The synthesized activated carbon with the optimal KOH to CCBW presented a high specific capacitance with the specific surface area of 2235.8 m2/g. The fabricated symmetric device presented a maximum specific energy and power of 17.1 Wh kg−1 and 425 W kg−1 at 0.5 A g−1. Besides, at high specific current of 10 A g−1 the device was able to maintain a specific energy and power of 11.3 Wh kg−1 and 8500 W kg−1, respectively. The device established a remarkable columbic efficiency of 99.8% and capacitance retention of 90.1% after 20,000 cycling at 5 A g−1. An outstanding improvement in specific capacitance from 127.6 F g−1 to 329.41 F g−1 after the device was subjected to floating time of 300 h was noted, with corresponding specific energy and power of 33.1 Wh kg−1 and 4250 W kg−1 at 5 A g−1. The results attained offers a possible process of transforming low-cost distinguished biomass source into highly porous nanostructured constituents for energy-storage applications.