Abstract
High surface area and large pore volume carbon materials having hierarchical nanoporous structure are required in high performance supercapacitors. Such nanoporous carbon materials can be fabricated from organic precursors with high carbon content, such as synthetic biomass or agricultural wastes containing cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Using recently developed unique concept of materials nanoarchitectonics, high performance porous carbons with controllable surface area, pore size distribution, and hierarchy in nanoporous structure can be fabricated. In this review, we will overview the recent trends and advancements on the synthetic methods for the production of hierarchical porous carbons with one- to three-dimensional network structure with superior performance in supercapacitors applications. We highlight the promising scope of accessing nanoporous graphitic carbon materials from: (i) direct conversion of single crystalline self-assembled fullerene nanomaterials and metal organic frameworks, (ii) hard- and soft-templating routes, and (iii) the direct carbonization and/or activation of biomass or agricultural wastes as non-templating routes. We discuss the appealing points of the different synthetic carbon sources and natural precursor raw-materials derived nanoporous carbon materials in supercapacitors applications.