Nitrogen(N)-Coordinated- Fe/Cu- ZIF Derived Carbon Nanostructures for Energy Devices

Abstract

Recently, 2-D metal oxide frameworks (MOFs) have exhibited great potential for energy storage devices including supercapacitors and batteries. This is due to their superior and highly tunable porous, structural, and morphological features. Zeolite imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are highly chemically, and thermally stable class of MOFs which offer a wide variety of tunable porous structures and morphologies in comparison to widely used nano porous carbon which requires inert gas environment and high temperature treatment for large scale production and is therefore hazardous and expensive. In this work, we propose a N-coordinated Fe/Cu doped ZIF-8 derived carbon structure using facile room temperature sol gel and ion exchange method. The powdered material thus obtained will later be annealed in inert gas environment at high temperature to obtained N-coordinated Fe/Cu doped nano porous powdered carbon structures. The samples thus prepared will be characterized to study their structural, morphological, and electrochemical properties using Raman spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Electrochemical impedance (EIS) spectroscopy measurements. The atomic composition will be studied using EdX measurements. The influence of bimetal doping for N-coordinated MOF derived carbon on the electrochemical performance will be studied using Nyquist and bode plots at electrode/polysulfide electrolyte interface suitable for QDSSCs. To the best of our knowledge, a bimetal Fe/Cu doped N-coordinated carbon-based electrolyte material has not been investigated for QDSSC solar cell applications. A possible insight into the defect states of the structures may also be investigated using Photoluminescent spectroscopy thus probing possible recombination sites influencing charge transport and loss mechanisms in the structures.