(423f) Food Waste Derived Carbon Electrode for Asymmetric Supercapacitors

Worldwide a significant amount of food is wasted, which pose disposal issues. Most food waste land up in landfills and contribute to environmental problems such as foul odors, greenhouse gas emission, increase in rodents/pests and more. As such food waste contains significant amount of moisture and undesired ash. Given that food waste is rich in carbohydrates (such as starch and cellulose), proteins, and lipids, it offers a substantial source of carbon, making it particularly suitable for thermochemical conversion into carbonaceous materials. In this study, food waste is subjected to hydrothermal liquefaction and carbonization (HTL/HTC) to convert it into hydrochar, a process that circumvents the need of biomass drying. The resulting hydrochar is thermally and chemically activated to produce porous carbon. Enhanced porosity and superior surface area of porous carbon holds promise for various energy storage applications including asymmetric supercapacitors (ASCs). The food waste-derived porous carbon is characterized using various techniques such as Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analyzer, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The porous carbon is utilized to fabricate asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC), which is characterized for energy storage properties. The electrochemical characteristics of carbon electrode and ASC will be presented.