Crab shells provide a cheap and convenient template to make high performance carbon electrodes for energy storage and conversion, say Chinese scientists. Carbon materials have many potential applications, including as electrodes in supercapacitors and fuel cells. The pore structure is known to affect their physicochemical properties and is normally controlled by using a porous hard template such as zeolite or silica. But the process usually involves using hydrofluoric acid to remove the templates, which can be complex and costly. A research group from Fudan University, led by Yong-Yao Xia, has demonstrated that crab shell has a well aligned porous structure at the microscopic level. Exploiting this...
