Amidoximated‐Wood Derived Carbons as Advanced Self‐Standing Electrodes for Supercapacitor and Water Splitting

Wood‐derived carbons demonstrate great potential as self‐standing electrodes in energy storage/conversion applications, including supercapacitors and water‐splitting devices. However, the key challenge remains the rational customization of surface functionalities for optimized performance. This study introduces an innovative approach to self‐standing wood‐derived carbons with tailored nitrogen and metal functionalities. In contrast to traditional impregnation techniques, which offer limited precision in surface modification, this approach entails the intentional attachment of amidoxime groups to the wood substrates. These groups serve as nitrogen sources, and create abundant surface anchoring sites for metal ions due to the chelation between the amidoxime groups and metals. The resulting carbons feature uniform and high dispersion of nitrogen and metal functionalities, along with a distinctive hierarchical porosity combining interconnected open channels with abundant mesopores. As a proof‐of‐concept, different metals are incorporated (i.e., Mn, Co, Ni) into the amidoximated‐wood precursors, and the resulting self‐standing carbons showcase excellent performance in both supercapacitors and water‐splitting applications. Leveraging the specific chelating ability of amidoxime groups toward metal ions, this strategy holds great potential as a generic approach to systematically tailoring the surface functionalities of carbon‐based materials for various electrochemical energy storage/conversion processes. An efficient strategy for constructing a series of self‐standing carbons using amidoximated‐wood is presented. The amidoxime group enables the formation of diverse amidoximed‐wood‐metal complexes. Subsequent pyrolysis of these complexes yields self‐standing metal/nitrogen‐doped carbons featuring high metal loading and dispersion, along with interconnected channels and abundant mesopores. These self‐standing carbons are highly efficient toward supercapacitor and water splitting.