In-situ template cooperated with urea to construct pectin-derived hierarchical porous carbon with optimized pore structure for supercapacitor

Pectin as a functional biopolymer has been successfully exploited to produce N/O co-doped 3D carbon architecture with hierarchical pores. A simple and novel in-situ template combining with KOH activation method is utilized to prepare porous carbon using calcium acetate as the template source and urea as a dopant. The in-situ CaCO 3 template, activation temperature and urea additive have a significant influence on the morphology, pore structure and performance of porous carbon. The high specific surface area of NHPC-700 (2928 m 2 g   −   1 ) and its suitable micropore/mesopores ratio are helpful to promote specific capacitance and rate performance. The NHPC-700 possesses the high specific capacitance of 338 F g   −   1 at 1 A g   −   1 and the excellent capacitance retention of 83% from 1 A g   −   1 to 50 A g   −   1 . Furthermore, the NHPC-700 symmetric supercapacitor shows an energy density of 22.4 Wh kg −1 at 880 W kg −1 in 1 M Na 2 SO 4 . The efficient use of pectin to synthesize functionalized hierarchical porous carbon materials has a broad development prospect.