A novel zinc sulfide impregnated carbon composite derived from zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 for sodium-ion hybrid solid-state flexible capacitors

The pyrolysis of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is an easy approach to prepare metal oxides as well as nanoporous carbon with high specific surface area. In the present work, for the first time, ZIF-8 (zeolitic imidazolate framework-8) has been pyrolyzed under different conditions to derive two products, i.e., highly porous carbon (C) and zinc sulfide (ZnS) infused carbon (ZnS@C). These two materials, i.e., nanoporous C and ZnS@C, have been investigated as a negative and a positive electrode, respectively, for potential application in a hybrid asymmetrical solid-state supercapacitor device (HASD). The controlled pyrolysis approach for the preparation of ZnS@C has yielded uniformly distributed ZnS nanoparticles inside the carbon structure. A 1.8 V HASD has been assembled, which delivered an excellent energy density of 38.3 W h kg(−1) (power density of 0.92 kW kg(−1)) along with the greatly desirable feature of cycling stability. The proposed selection of materials as electrodes is promising to develop futuristic hybrid capacitors.