Oxygen-sulfur-phosphorus co-doped activated carbon derived from lotus stamens for high-performance supercapacitors

Abstract Lotus stamen, as a traditional Chinese medicine, is rich in oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus. In this work, we successfully developed oxygen-sulfur-phosphorus co-doped activated carbon (LSAC) from lotus stamens via a facile activation process. The as-prepared activated carbon has a large specific surface area of 1026.9 m2g−1, abundant heteroatom dopants, and a hierarchical micro/meso/macroporous structure. Thanks to the above advantages, the LSAC electrode exhibits a high specific capacitance of 322.8 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and remarkable cyclic stability, maintaining 90.2% of its initial capacitance after 10000 cycles. Moreover, the symmetric supercapacitor assembled from LSAC electrodes displays an excellent energy density of 24.1 W h kg−1 at a power density of 490 W kg−1.