Today's progress in the synthesis of porous carbons from biomass and their application for organic electrolyte and ionic liquid based supercapacitors

Supercapacitors (SCs) currently attract great attention from researchers working in the field of energy storage over the world. This review article is focused on the recent advances in the development of biomass-derived activated carbons and their application as electrode materials for electric double layer capacitors (EDLCs) based on organic electrolytes and ionic liquids. Such EDLCs are known to have such features as the high energy and power density at very high stability (more than several hundred thousand charge-discharge cycles), the ability to operate at low temperatures as well as the simple principle of charge storage and construction. The features of various approaches to production of activated (porous) carbons (ACs) from biomass are highlighted in detail as well as their performance as materials for EDLC application. A contribution of various properties of the ACs like pore size distribution, graphitization, and other features to their characteristics as non-aqueous electrolyte based supercapacitor electrode materials are considered. Requirements to desirable properties of ACs to achieve EDLCs with high energy accumulating characteristics, as well as to approaches to AC synthesis are formulated.