Boron, oxygen co-doped porous carbon derived from waste tires with enhanced hydrophilic interface as sustainably high-performance material for supercapacitors

The number of scrap tires has been increasing in recent years and pyrolytic carbon black (CBp) is an important product of scrap tire pyrolysis. However, due to the poor surface activity and the high contents of ash and carbonaceous deposits, the untreated CBp can only be used for low-end rubber products with poor economic efficiency. Herein, we propose a new Boron, Oxygen co-doped porous carbon (AB-CBp) through a facile KOH activation and boric acid modificating CBp. The modification of boron and oxygen heteroatoms has dramatically increased its specific surface area (SSA), hydrophilicity and conductivity, leading to the enhanced specific capacitance and rate performance. The assembled zinc-ion hybrid super-capacitor (ZIHC) devices have a maximum capacity of 83.2 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1. Moreover, this device demonstrates an impressive cycling life with a high capacitance retention rate of 92.3 % at 10 A g−1 after 30,000 cycles. The work not only paves a new way for the efficient utilization of CBp from waste tires, but also demonstrates the employments of inexpensive and sustainable material for the further development of energy storage.