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Coal tar-pitch derived porous carbons with zinc oxide nanoparticles as a dual-functional template and activating agent for high-performance supercapacitors

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Abstract

The development of advanced carbon materials is indispensable for high-performance supercapacitors. Herein, we report the direct pyrolysis of waste coal-tar pitch (CTP) with ZnO nanoparticles (Zn NPs) to produce hierarchical porous carbon materials (HPCs). The CTP served as a carbon source, and the embedded ZnO NPs as a simultaneous templating and activating agent for HPCs. At an optimum temperature of 800 °C, the produced HPCs (HPC-800) realized an optimal specific surface area (1267 m2 g-1) and pore volume of 1.71 cm3 g-1, enabling the devised capacitor to exhibit a specific capacitance of 172 F g-1 at a current density of 0.1 A g-1 in 6 M KOH electrolyte and a capacitance retention of 81% (0.1–30 A g-1). The as-symmetrical device could deliver an energy density of 8.3 Wh∙kg-1 at a high-power density of 50.0 W∙kg-1 and retained energy density of 4.9 Wh∙kg-1 at a power density of 11.9 kW∙kg-1.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (buctrc202141).

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (buctrc202141).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Process and Technology for Materials, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Zaheer Abbas, Jai Kumar, Razium Ali Soomro, Ning Sun, Zhaoxin Yu & Bin Xu

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  1. Zaheer Abbas
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  2. Jai Kumar
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  3. Razium Ali Soomro
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  4. Ning Sun
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  5. Zhaoxin Yu
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Contributions

Z. A; design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of results, J.K; manuscript preparation and revision, R.A.S; editing, revision of manuscript, N.S; supervision, editing and revision, Z.Y; editing, interpretation of results, B.X; supervision and provision of funds.

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Correspondence to Razium Ali Soomro or Bin Xu.

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Abbas, Z., Kumar, J., Soomro, R.A. et al. Coal tar-pitch derived porous carbons with zinc oxide nanoparticles as a dual-functional template and activating agent for high-performance supercapacitors. J Porous Mater (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-024-01629-1

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