<p>Using porous carbon with high specific surface area, excellent conductivity and good chemical stability as electrode material to prepare supercapacitors is increasingly becoming an important research direction in the field of clean energy and efficient energy storage systems. In this paper, furfural residue based porous carbon materials (FRPC_X) with large specific surface area and rich pore structure were prepared by low-temperature pre carbonization and chemical activation using biomass waste furfural residue as carbon precursor. The pore structure distribution of carbon material was controlled by KOH activation. The optimal activation conditions were as follows: activation temperature was 850 ℃, alkali carbon ratio was 3, activation time was 1&#xa0;h. The prepared furfural residue based porous carbon material (FRPC_{850 − 1−3}) had the largest specific surface area (3074.2 m²g^− 1) and total pore volume (1.4 cm³g^− 1), and the ratio of micropore volume to total pore volume was 73.21%. In the three-electrode system, FRPC_{850 − 1−3} has the best electrochemical performance (the specific capacitance is 245.13&#xa0;F g^− 1 at 0.5&#xa0;A g^− 1; When it increases to 10&#xa0;A g^− 1, the specific capacitance still reaches 184&#xa0;F g^− 1), showing a high capacitance retention rate of 75%. In the two-electrode system, the energy density of FRPC_{850 − 1−3}//FRPC_{850 − 1−3} symmetric supercapacitor can reach 6.63 Wh kg^− 1 at 250&#xa0;W kg^− 1, and its capacitance retention rate is more than 100% and coulomb efficiency is still about 100% after 10,000 cycles. This paper provides a method for the effective utilization of furfural residue.</p>