Activated carbons from dairy products

Abstract

An electrode of an energy storage device and methods of fabrication are provided which include: pyrolyzing a carbon-containing precursor to form a stabilized-carbonized material; and annealing the stabilized-carbonized material to form a structurally-modified activated carbon material. The structurally-modified activated carbon material includes a tunable pore size distribution and an electrochemically-active surface area. The electrochemically-active surface area of the structurally-modified activated carbon material is greater than a surface area of graphene having at least one layer, the surface area of the graphene having at least one layer being about 2630 m 2 g 1 .

1 . A method comprising:
 fabricating an electrode of an energy storage device, the fabricating comprising:   pyrolyzing a carbon-containing precursor to form a stabilized- carbonized material; and   annealing the stabilized-carbonized material to form a structurally- modified activated carbon material, wherein the structurally-modified activated carbon material comprises a tunable pore size distribution and an electrochemically-active surface area, the electrochemically-active surface area being greater than a surface area of graphene having at least one layer, the surface area of the graphene having at least one layer being about 2630 m 2  g −1 .   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the pyrolyzing of the carbon-containing precursor at least partially hydrolyzes to form the stabilized-carbonized material, wherein the electrochemically-active surface area of the structurally-modified activated carbon material is greater than the surface area of the stabilized-carbonized material. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the pyrolyzing of the carbon-containing precursor is performed at a temperature that is lower than the annealing of the stabilized-carbonized material. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising chemically activating the stabilized- carbonized material, concurrently with the annealing, with an inorganic base to form the structurally-modified activated carbon material, wherein the chemically activating of the stabilized-carbonized material defines the tunable pore size distribution of the structurally- modified activated carbon material. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the tunable pore size distribution of the structurally-modified activated carbon material is modulated to have at least one of a micropore volume and a mesopore volume, the mesopore volume being equal to or greater than the micropore volume of a total pore volume disposed therein. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the structurally-modified activated carbon material has an enhanced energy storage capacity relative to a corresponding current density, the enhanced energy storage capacity being a function of the mesopore volume distributed within the structurally-modified activated carbon material. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the structurally-modified activated carbon material has a microporosity of a pore size that is less than 2 nm, and a mesoporosity of a pore size within a range of about 2 nm to about 50 nm. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the structurally-modified activated carbon material comprises at least one of an undoped carbon material and a doped carbon material, wherein a dopant of the doped carbon material is at least one of a nitrogen atom and an oxygen atom, the dopant having an atomic content of about 0.2 weight % to about 20 weight % of a total weight of the structurally-modified activated carbon material. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the carbon-containing precursor comprises at least one of a plant-based precursor material, a dairy-based precursor material, a fossil-fuel precursor material, industrial or research-grade polymer precursor material, an organic solution precursor material, a waste product precursor material, a biological tissue precursor material, a metal-organic framework precursor material, and a carbon-containing synthetic precursor material. 
     
     
         10 - 29 . (canceled)