Microwave-assisted synthesis of activated carbon from aerobic combustion of cotton in sesamee oil for high performance supercapacitor

We report on the microwave aided activation of activated carbon (AC) prepared from aerobic combustion of cotton in sesamee oil. It has been revealed that microwave aided activation at 110 °C in convection mode for 5 min improve the porosity and surface area of prepared AC. The produced AC exhibited the surface area of 686 m 2 /g with total pore volume of 0.44 cm 3 /g which is higher than bare carbon without activation (surface area of 92.5 m 2 /g and total pore volume of 0.13 cm 3 /g). Therefore, the prepared AC-based device exhibited an impressive energy density of 33.68 Wh/kg with specific capacitance of 485 F/g at 1 A/g. In addition, the series combination of three devices demonstrated the stable operation up to 3 V and glow the red LED for 65 s. These results exhibiting that microwave assisted activation method could be beneficial in terms of ease of process and time/energy saving in compare to the conventional activation process at high temperature to produced high quality carbon materials for supercapacitor applications.