Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development in Africa

The global energy crisis, intensified by rising demand and excessive fossil fuel consumption, poses severe environmental challenges such as global warming and ozone layer depletion. Addressing these issues requires sustainable and efficient energy storage systems to harness renewable energy. Our research focuses on developing eco-friendly energy storage solutions derived from biomass. Utilizing peanut shell waste, we synthesized activated carbon nanostructures with enhanced porosity. An asymmetric supercapacitor in a neutral electrolyte (2.5 M KNO3) at 1.8 V exhibited a specific capacitance of 224.3 F g⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹, with specific energy and power densities of 25.2 W h kg⁻¹ and 0.9 kW kg⁻¹, respectively. To enhance performance, nitrogen-doped porous carbon was synthesized and tested in the same electrolyte. This device demonstrated a specific capacitance of 251.2 F g⁻¹ at 2.0 V, achieving improved energy and power densities of 35 W h kg⁻¹ and 1 kW kg⁻¹. Further, sustainable binary vanadium pentoxide-carbon graphene foam composites (V2O5@C-R2HS/GF) were developed using a green synthesis method. These composites achieved outstanding specific energy and power values of 55 W h kg⁻¹ and 707 W kg⁻¹ at 1 A g⁻¹. Stability tests revealed 99% capacity retention over 10,000 cycles, with a 23.6% increase in specific energy after the initial 10 hours. These findings underscore the potential of transdisciplinary approaches in leveraging waste materials and green technologies to tackle Africa’s energy challenges and advance sustainable development across the continent.