Teak wood derived porous carbon: An efficient cathode material for zinc‐ion hybrid supercapacitor

Abstract An appealing choice for energy storage system that merges the advantages of zinc‐ion battery with supercapacitor is the zinc‐ion hybrid supercapacitor (ZHS). Carbonaceous materials have recently received significant attention as the viable cathode material for ZHS. Carbon‐based materials having large surface area and suitable pore structure exhibit fast kinetics and good charge storage behavior in ZHS. Carbonization temperature plays a vital role in optimizing surface area and developing the pore structure of the carbon. Activated carbon is successfully prepared from teak wood at different carbonization temperatures of ~600°C, 750°C, and 900°C, followed by KOH activation. The teak wood‐derived material carbonized at ~750°C (ATC2) shows the highest specific surface area of ~898.16 m 2 g −1 . Fabricated ZHS with ATC2 as cathode delivers the highest specific capacitance of ~116 F g −1 at 0.5 A g −1 and exhibits outstanding capacitance retention of ~102.8% after 10 000 continuous galvanostatic charge‐discharge cycles recorded at 10 A g −1 . In addition, the device shows ~42 W h kg −1 energy density at ~408 W kg −1 power density. The fabricated ZHS can power an LED and a digital clock, suggesting its potential application as energy storage device.