Green conversion of Ganoderma lucidum residues to electrode materials for supercapacitors

There is an urgent need to find green and efficient technologies for the sustainable reuse of the Chinese medicine residues due to their abundant annual production companied with serious environment problems. Herein, we synthesized a three-dimensional hierarchically porous carbon from Ganoderma lucidum residues for the application of supercapacitor electrodes via a molten alkali treatment activation/carbonization process. The resulting porous carbon samples had large surface areas (1347.7 m 2  g −1 ), a hierarchical pore structure, and excellent capacitance and were obtained using much less corrosive activator compared with other studies. When used for supercapacitor, the Ganoderma lucidum residues–derived porous carbon electrode presented outstanding electrochemical performance, with specific capacitances of up to 365.6 F g −1 at 1 A g −1 , and cycling stability of up to 99% after 10,000 cycles at a current density of 2 A g −1 . This work broadens the application of Chinese medicine residues in the field of energy storage and provides a new avenue for high value conversion of waste resources. Graphical abstract Using Chinese Medicine Residues as precursor, a convenient activation/carbonization process is proposed to synthesize porous carbon as supercapacitor electrode materials.