Fabrication of highly porous N-doped mesoporous carbon using waste polyethylene terephthalate bottle-based MOF-5 for high performance supercapacitor

Herein, high surface area nitrogen doped mesoporous carbon (N-MC) has been fabricated through economically feasible approach using waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic through MOF-5 construction. Utmost rational approach of PET waste recycling is the chemical route/s, in which a depolymerization of PET takes place for converting it into its building block (1,4-benzendicarboxylic acid) which was used as an organic linker to construct MOF-5. The synthesized N-MC demonstrates high specific surface area of similar to 2243 m(2) g(-1) with mesopores (similar to 14 nm). An excellent electrochemical as well as energy storage behavior was shown in super-capacitors as tested in three-electrode system with 6 M KOH. The electrochemical results revealed that the fabricated N-MC depicts an enhanced specific capacitance of similar to 230 F g(-1) by cyclic voltammetry (CV) at 5 mV s(-1) and similar to 295 F g(-1) by galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) at 0.5 A g(-1). The GCD stability test showed similar to 98% retention after running 400 segments. The fabrication of N-MC using waste PET plastic makes it appealing for environmental remediation and an efficient low-cost electrode material for supercapacitor applications.

Automated summary

This study fabricated high surface area nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon (N-MC) using waste PET plastics, demonstrating excellent electrochemical performance in supercapacitors. By recycling PET waste through chemical processes, the efficient depolymerization and conversion of PET into high-performance materials for energy storage applications were achieved.