Environmentally Friendly Biological Activated Carbon Derived from Sugarcane Waste as a Promising Carbon Source for Efficient and Robust Rechargeable Zinc–Air Battery

• Published in: Catalysts 2024-10, Vol.14 (10), p.740
• Main Authors: Deng, Lianghao, Wang, Chenyang, Xu, Anqi, Zha, Fanglin, Liu, Tong, Hu, Xuelei, Wang, Yao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activated carbon; Agricultural wastes; Alternative energy sources; Bagasse; Batteries; Biological activity; Biomass; Charge materials; Electrodes; Energy storage; Fourier transforms; Green market; Industrial wastes; Liu, Timothy; Maximum power density; Metal air batteries; Particle size; Perovskite; Perovskites; Renewable resources; Spectrum analysis; Sugarcane; Tetracycline; Tetracyclines; Zinc; Zinc-oxygen batteries
• ISSN: 2073-4344; 2073-4344
• DOI: 10.3390/catal14100740

China is one of the largest sugarcane industrial countries in the world, and the annual output of bagasse waste is abundant. Classical incineration, landfill, and other treatment methods are inefficient and seriously harmful to the environment, so it is urgent to develop a new comprehensive utilization of agricultural waste. In this work, the sugarcane waste residue is converted to biological activated carbon (BAC) through a simple pre-carbonization and KOH activation process, which is then mixed with perovskite oxide BaCo0.5Fe0.5O3−δ (BCF) to form BAC/BCF composite air electrode. BAC/BCF assembled rechargeable zinc–air battery (ZAB) exhibits a relatively good output maximum power density of 96 mW·cm−2 and considerable long-term charge–discharge cycle stability over 250 h operation. These results indicate that the BAC derived from sugarcane waste is a promising potential carbon material candidate for ZAB application, which can realize the high-value utilization of agricultural waste in the field of efficient and durable energy storage and conversion devices.