Sustainable carbon materials from edible biomass or related waste for supercapacitor applications: a mini review

Edible biomass and related wastes can be converted into useful porous carbons used in energy storage devices. Techniques like pyrolysis, carbonization, and chemical/physical activation create carbon materials with high surface area, tunable pore structures, and heteroatom doping. These materials demonstrate strong performance in supercapacitors and hybrid devices with excellent specific capacitances and energy and power densities with excellent cycle life. Integration of the carbons into flexible and hybrid architectures further expands their application scope from wearables to potentially grid-scale energy systems. Sustainability, performance, and economics converge in edible biomass-based carbon makes it a promising solution for greener energy storage. This timely short-review briefly highlights the notable advancements made in this field over the last decade.