Hierarchically Nanoporous Carbon Engineered from Wood for Concurrent Dye Remediation and Electrochemical Charge...

This study investigates the fabrication of Pterospermum acerifolium wood nanoporous carbon (PAWNC) by a dual carbonization and KOH activation method. Morphological and textural analyses using FE-SEM and BET techniques demonstrated that PAWNC exhibits a well-developed porous structure with a surface area of 516.2 m² g^-1. FTIR analysis reveals that the PAWNC surface contains C = O, -COOH, C = C, and -OH functional moieties. The synthesized PAWNC has been effectively utilized for the elimination of cationic methyl violet (MV) dye and assessed for indicating its suitability as an efficient electrode material for advanced supercapacitor systems. For MV removal, the adsorption system achieved equilibrium at approximately 100 min, with the kinetic behavior fitting well to a pseudo-second-order model. The adsorption isotherms were well described by the Langmuir model. With an adsorption capacity of 259.7 mg g^-1, the ideal pH for MV (300 mg L^-1) adsorption onto PAWNC (0.09 g/100 mL) was 8.0. Furthermore, the prepared PAWNC demonstrates excellent performance as a supercapacitor electrode material, with a specific capacitance of 145.6 F g^-1 in 1 M KOH electrolyte, comparable to other modern carbon-based materials. The energy density for two electrode device was found 16.6 Wh Kg^-1 at 0.1 Ag ^-1 with 93% retention in 6000 cycles.