Carbonized porous zeolitic imidazolate framework as promising electrode for electrochemical supercapacitors

In order to manufacture effective supercapacitors with improved electrochemical performance, it is imperative to investigate greater surface area electrode materials. This work describes the development of a cost-effective method for the carbonization of porous zeolitic imidazole framework (ZIF8) to utilize as electrode of electrochemical supercapacitors. The electrode materials were prepared by synthesizing highly porous ZIF8-P followed by pyrolysis at 500 °C (ZIF8-P-500). The pyrolysis of ZIF-8 significantly strengthened the porous behavior by maintaining their hexagonal particles and obtaining high surface to volume ratio. The measurements using constant current charge/discharge (GCD) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) were used to evaluate the electrochemical capacitance characteristics of the synthesized ZIF8-P based electrode. The supercapacitor assembly using the optimized ZIF8-P electrode exhibited a high specific capacitance of ∼423.9 Fg^–1 with exceptional cycle stability by maintaining capacitance of ∼86.7 % from its initial capacitance after 5000 cycles. Thus, the results indicate that the ZIF8-P based supercapacitor offers a compelling path for creating porous carbon electrodes from MOFs using low cost pyrolysis for advancing supercapacitor technology.