Recent Progress and Future Directions of Biomass-Derived Hierarchical Porous Carbon: Designing, Preparation, and Supercapacitor Applications

In the past decades, fossil energy depletion, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions have resulted in serious health threats and ecological imbalances, which prompt researchers to explore green and sustainable supercapacitor energy storage and conversion systems. Biomass is a promising renewable energy source to use for biomass porous carbon for supercapacitor devices because it is renewable and has abundant reserves, a low price, and low pollution carbon energy. To date, although some reports have screened different biomass precursors, carbonization methods, and activation strategies and mechanisms, a comprehensive evaluation and critical review of the correlation among biomass porous carbon properties, including pore structure and surface chemistry, and electrochemical energy storage performances of supercapacitors are absent from a multidisciplinary assessment perspective. Therefore, in this review, we summarize recent advances in the biomass porous carbon synthesis process focusing on different carbonization and activation strategies, point out the scope of applicability and advantages/disadvantages of these methods in supercapacitor applications, and reveal the reaction mechanisms and limitations for commercial production. Then, the relationships among biomass porous carbon properties, including hierarchical porous structure, surface chemistry, specific surface area, and electrochemical performances of supercapacitors are reviewed in detail, which enables researchers to prepare and design advanced materials in a more rational way and facilitates them to explore more cutting-edge energy storage materials. Finally, two effective techniques including heteroatom doping and composite material construction are reviewed to address the general problem of low supercapacitor energy density. This review demonstrates the great potential of biomass porous carbon with superior properties, provides advanced tailoring and design viewpoints for the application fields of high-performance supercapacitors, and is expected to inspire new exploration and boost the practical commercial applications of biomass-derived hierarchical porous carbon material in more energy storage and conversion fields.