Investigating Sugarcane Bagasse Based Biochar for Supercapacitor Electrodes

Nigeria has substantial biomass potential of about 144 million tonnes per year; Biomass-derived chars are stable solid materials with high carbon content, low density, high porosity and large surface area. Biochars are recently receiving particular attention in energy storage and conversion applications such as biochar for supercapacitors electrodes. Sugercane bagasse was pyrolyzed at temperature of 200 oC in a modified microwave oven to produce a biochar in which its properties were investigated for possible use in supercapacitor electrodes. SEM, EDX and BET methods were adopted for characterization. The biochar obtained is approximately 17% of the biomass weight. The SEM-EDX results revealed the presence of various similar surface elements the elements with higher percentage in the biochar are carbon and nitrogen with percentage of 81.45% and 78.59% respectively. The BET results shows that the biochar surface area, pore volume and pore radius found to be 5.42 m2g-1,  3.33 cc g-1 and 2.07nm respectively. The study shows that the produced biochar has some qualities which may found its applications in soil fertility improvement, enhanced soil structure, carbon sequestration, pH regulation, pollution mitigation, microbial activity enhancement, etc. This is due to its elemental composition and structure possessed at this pyrolysis temperature. These findings suggest that electrodes in supercapacitor application should be pyrolyzed at temperature greater than 200oC for the biochar to be effective in supercapacitor applications.