Coal Tar-Pitch Derived Porous Carbons with Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles As a Dual-Functional Template and Activating Agent for High-Performance Supercapacitors

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