Pseudocapacitive Behavior of Lignin Nanocrystals Hybridized onto Reduced Graphene Oxide for Renewable Energy Storage Material

As the society demands the high performance energy storage devices, development of efficient and renewable energy storage materials has been a topic of interest. Here, we report pseudocapacitive behaviors of biopolymer (lignin) that was confined onto reduced graphene oxides (RGOs) for a renewable energy storage system. The strong surface confinement of quinone groups onto the electroconductive RGOs created the renewable hybrid electrodes for supercapacitors (SCs) with fast and reversible redox charge transfer. As a result, the pseudocapacitors fabricated with the hybrid electrodes of lignin and RGO presented the outstanding electrochemical performances of remarkable rate and cyclic performances:~4% capacitance drop after 3000 cycles and a maximum capacitance of 432 F g-1.