ABSTRACT

Environmental concerns and energy security uncertainties associated with fossil

fuels have driven the research community to shift their interest to renewable energy
sources. However, most of these energy sources are intermittent in nature and thus need
storage systems. Amongst various storage systems, supercapacitors are the promising
candidates for energy storage not only in renewable energies but also in hybrid vehicles
and portable devices due to their high-power density. In line with this, this study reports
on producing highly porous carbon materials by carbonization and activation of biomass
Pleurotus ostreatus. The porous carbons activated at 700°C showed the highest
measurements in terms of specific surface area and maximum specific capacitance with
3255m2g-1 and 236 F g-1 respectively. Furthermore, the assembled symmetric
supercapacitor shows a specific capacitance of 195 F g -1 at 0.2 A g-1 and excellent long-
term cycle stability with a capacitance retention of 93% after 15000 charge-discharge
cycles at a current density of 2 A g-1. In the comparison of data, the Oyster mushroom-
derived activated carbon ranked better than the results of coconut shell-derived. In lieu of
the results, the researchers can affirm that the activated carbon derived from Oyster
mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) is a viable source of energy for supercapacitor use.