Recent advances in carbon materials from marine biomass: Toward sustainable energy storage solutions

Harnessing the “natural abundance of bio resource waste materials as value added products” has been an essential strategy in contemporary technology for creating effective materials for high performance energy and environmental products. This review emphasizes the notable progress in activated carbon materials derived from seaweed, concentrating on their function as active materials and their effectiveness in electrochemical energy conversion devices, particularly batteries and supercapacitors. This comprehensive review showcases the latest advancements and mechanisms/activities of seaweed derived carbon according to various factors such as structural integrity, porosity spanning a wide range of pore sizes including micropores (<2 nm), mesopores (2–50 nm), and macropores (>50 nm), reactive paths, number of active sites, electrical conductivity, synergy with high critical nutrients (N, P, and K), chemical and electrochemical stability, heteroatom/metal atom doping, surface functionalization, and homogeneity/heterogeneity. Finally, we discuss improving understanding of the potential challenges and summarize future hypothetical solutions for overcoming difficulties of seaweed derived activated carbon in each application. Researchers interested in tackling challenges in such disciplines would find this work highly pertinent. • Activated carbon made from seaweed provide considerable benefits in energy systems. • Efficient performances in electrochemical energy devices especially batteries and supercapacitors. • The review identifies key benefits and challenges in using seaweed-derived activated carbon. • It proposes potential future strategies to overcome these application-specific difficulties.