Hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) hold great promise in energy-related applications owing to their excellent chemical stability and well-developed porous structures. Attention has been drawn toward developing new synthetic strategies and precursor materials that permit greater control over composition, size, morphology, and pore structure. There is a growing trend of employing metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as HPC precursors as their highly customizable characteristics favor new HPC syntheses. In this article, we report a biomimetically grown bacterial-templated MOF synthesis where the bacteria not only facilitate the formation of MOF nanocrystals but also provide morphology and porosity control. The resultant HPCs show improved electrochemical capacity behavior compared to pristine MOF-derived HPCs. Considering the broad availability of bacteria and ease of their production, in addition to significantly improved MOF growth efficiency on bacterial templates, we believe that the bacterial-templated MOF is a promising strategy to produce a new generation of HPCs.

Flexible, free standing and binder-free electrodes were fabricated by electrospinning from a series of lignin: polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer blends, followed by heat treatment. PVA has the dual function of facilitating the electrospinning of lignin and acting as a sacrificial polymer. Upon stabilization, carbonization and CO 2 activation, carbon nanofibers (ACNF) derived from the lignin:PVA 80:20 blend displayed a high surface area of 2170 m 2 g −1 and a mesopore volume of 0.365 cm 3 g −1 . ACNFs derived from all the compositions show high degrees of graphitization based on Raman analysis. Pyr 14 TFSI ionic liquid (IL), modified by mixing with propylene carbonate and ethylene carbonate to reduce the viscosity and increase the ionic conductivity, was used as a high-performance electrolyte. The resulting IL mixture exhibited a four-fold increase in ionic conductivity compared to the neat IL Coin cell supercapacitors using electrodes derived from lignin:PVA 80:20 blends and this electrolyte displayed 87 F g −1 specific capacitance and 38 Wh kg −1 energy density which is the highest reported energy density for lignin:PVA blends to date.

High performing supercapacitor electrode materials were obtained by controlling the nanostructure of electrospun fibers derived from PBI/6FDD immiscible blends.