Metal organic framework derived heteroatom doped porous carbon nanocubes enable efficient charge storage in a lithium-ion capacitor

Lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) are regarded as one of the promising technologies towards realizing energy & power dense energy storage systems. However, their energy densities at higher power densities are still limited due to the discrepancy between electrode kinetics of capacitor-like cathode and battery-like anode. Developing carbon materials with well-defined structures, porosity to match the chemical kinetics between electrodes are the major challenges to overcome. In the present work, we have devised a strategy to fabricate S, N dual-doped porous carbon nanocubes (S, N-PCNs) using zeolitic imidazole framework (ZIF)-8 precursors, and employed the PCNs as anode material in LICs. With its well-defined structure, hierarchical porous nature, and abundant heteroatom presence (1.9 % S, 16.2 % N), the pre-lithiated S, N-PCNs based anode has offered a greatly improved reversible storage capacity of similar to 930 mAh g(-1) at 0.1 A g(-1) along with an impressive rate capability and cycling life. When S, N-PCNs anode is paired with activated carbon cathode, the 4 V dual-carbon LIC yields an energy density as high as 120.24 Wh kg(-1) and 10.2 kW kg(-1) of power density with a good cycle stability of 90.6 % after 5000 charge-discharge cycles. This work would open new scopes of exploring metal-organic framework derived heteroatom-doped porous carbons to make metal-ion capacitors more efficient.