Abstract: Biomass porous carbon materials are widely used in lithium ion batteries due to their wide sources and high cost performance, while activators used in the preparation process have a great influence on the lithium storage performance of materials. Therefore, using soybean shell as carbon source, porous carbon materials were prepared under different technological conditions, and the effect of activator on lithium storage performance of porous carbon materials was investigated through structural characterization and electrochemical performance tests. It may be shown as follows: (1) When the current density is 185 mA·g⁻¹, the initial discharge and charge specific capacity of CaCl₂-activated porous carbon (DK-CaCl₂) is 639.0/269.5 mA·h·g⁻¹, while that of KOH activated porous carbon (DK-KOH) is 986.7/307.5 mA·h·g⁻¹; (2) When the mass ratios of soybean shell to KOH are 1∶2, 1∶4 and 1∶8, the first specific capacities of the obtained porous carbon are 544.9/136.8, 986.7/307.5 and 375.1/93.4 mA·h·g⁻¹, after 200 cycles, their discharges retain 88.8, 318.9 and 94.7 mA·h·g⁻¹, respectively. This indicates that the lithium storage performance of porous carbon materials prepared with different activators and activation ratios are different, which is due to the different specific surface area of materials, resulting in different electrochemical performance.