Heavy Metal-Free Tannin from Bark for Sustainable Energy Storage

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04242
• Publication Date: 2017-11-21T21:47:13Z
• Authors: Alolika Mukhopadhyay; Yucong Jiao; Rui Katahira; Peter N. Ciesielski; Michael Himmel; Hongli Zhu
• Keywords: Tannin; Carbon fibers

A novel renewable cathode made from earth abundant, low-cost materials can contribute to the intermittent storage needs of energy-based society. In this work, we report for first-time tannin Nature as a material. Our approach exploits charge mechanism redox active quinone moiety. Tannins extracted tree bark using environmental friendly aqueous solvents have highest phenol content (5.56 mol g-1) among all natural phenolic biopolymers, 5000 times higher than lignin. coupled with conductive polymer polypyrrole acquire high specific capacitance values 370 F g-1 at 0.5 well excellent rate performance 196 25 g-1. Additionally, employed carbonized wood an electrode substrate produce sustainable electrochemical device dramatically improved compared conventional devices. The surface area provided by well-aligned, cellular porosity wood-derived combined mobility ions and electrons in cell walls deposited achieve areal 4.6 cm-2 1 mA cm-2, which is 1.5 activated carbon.