Electrochemical Energy Storage from Biomass-Derived Materials

Electrochemical energy storage harnesses reversible redox reactions and ion adsorption to store electrical energy in devices such as batteries and supercapacitors. Biomass-derived materials—including lignin, cellulose, chitin, chitosan and low-molecular-weight quinones—provide a renewable feedstock for sustainable electrode architectures. Through controlled carbonisation, biomass can be converted into hierarchically porous carbons with high surface areas for electric double-layer capacitors, while intact biopolymers or their derivatives can supply redox-active functionalities for pseudocapacitive charge storage. Hybrid composites combine biocarbon scaffolds with redox polymers or small molecules to deliver enhanced conductivity, mechanical stability and cyclability. Advances in synthesis, interface engineering and device integration have led to flexible paper-based supercapacitors, aqueous lithium-organic batteries and large-scale grid-level storage modules that foreground environmental compatibility, cost reduction and lifecycle management. The global drive to decarbonise energy systems has stimulated cross-disciplinary efforts to optimise reaction pathways, tune microstructure and balance Faradaic and non-Faradaic processes, yielding biomass-derived electrodes that approach or match the performance of conventional inorganic counterparts while offering biodegradability and reduced ecological impact.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated that quinone-rich biopolymers deposited onto engineered carbon substrates can attain exceptional pseudocapacitance and cycling stability. By solution-coating Sepia melanin and tannic-acid-derived catechin onto textured carbon paper, devices achieved gravimetric capacitances exceeding 300 F g⁻¹, power densities above 20 kW kg⁻¹ and full capacitance retention over tens of thousands of cycles in aqueous electrolytes. In parallel, the development of lignin-derived carbon aerogels with controlled pore architecture has enabled the integration of redox-active lignosulfonate within 3D frameworks. These electrodes deliver both high energy density and rapid charge–discharge capability, demonstrating reversible capacities nearing 100 mAh g⁻¹ in lithium-organic configurations and stable performance over several hundred cycles. Such work underlines the potential of interfacial design and hierarchical porosity in reconciling bio-based sustainability with device-level metrics.

Electrochemical Energy Storage from Biomass-Derived Materials publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in electrochemical energy storage from biomass-derived materials across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Pseudocapacitance: Charge storage via fast, reversible Faradaic reactions at or near the electrode surface.

Electric double-layer capacitance: Non-Faradaic charge storage arising from ion adsorption at the electrode–electrolyte interface.

Redox polymer: A polymer bearing repeat units that undergo reversible oxidation and reduction to store charge.

Specific capacitance: Capacitance normalised by electrode mass, typically expressed in farads per gram (F g⁻¹).

Faradaic reaction: Charge transfer process involving electron exchange and chemical transformation of active species.

Hierarchically porous carbon: Carbon material featuring pores of multiple size scales (micro-, meso- and macropores) for enhanced ion transport and surface area.

References

1. Biopolymer hybrid electrodes for scalable electricity storage. Materials Horizons (2016).
2. Influence of the cellulose substrate on the electrochemical properties of paper-based polypyrrole electrode materials. Journal of Materials Science (2012).
3. Vanillin decorated chitosan as electrode material for sustainable energy storage. RSC Advances (2019).
4. Effect of Sulfonation Level on Lignin/Carbon Composite Electrodes for Large-Scale Organic Batteries. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (2020).
5. Understanding the characteristics of conducting polymer-redox biopolymer supercapacitors. Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2019).
6. Interplay of Porosity, Wettability, and Redox Activity as Determining Factors for Lithium–Organic Electrochemical Energy Storage Using Biomolecules. ChemSusChem (2020).
7. Biosourced quinones for high-performance environmentally benign electrochemical capacitors via interface engineering. Communications Chemistry (2022).