Developing carbon materials featuring both high accessible surface area and high structure stability are desirable to boost the performance of constructed electrochemical electrodes and devices. Herein, we report a new type of microporous carbon (MPC) derived from biomass waste based on a simple high-temperature chemical activation procedure. The optimized MPC-900 possesses microporous structure, high surface area, partially graphitic structure, and particularly low impurity content, which are critical features for enhancing carbon-based electrochemical process. The constructed MPC-900 symmetric supercapacitor exhibits high performances in commercial organic electrolyte such as widened voltage window up to 3 V and thereby high energy/power densities (50.95 Wh kg(-1) at 0.44 kW kg(-1); 25.3 Wh kg(-1) at 21.5 kW kg(-1)). Furthermore, a simple melt infiltration method has been employed to enclose SnO2 nanocrystals onto the carbon matrix of MPC-900 as a high-performance lithium storage material. The obtained SnO2-MPC composite with ultrafine SnO2 nanocrystals delivers high capacities (1115 mAh g(-1) at 0.2 A g(-1); 402 mAh g(-1) at 10 A g(-1)) and high-rate cycling lifespan of over 2000 cycles. This work not only develops a microporous carbon with high carbon purity and high surface area, but also provides a general platform for combining electrochemically active materials. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.