Herein,
a 1D zinc coordination polymer [Zn(bibp)Cl2]∞ (CP-2-ZX) was assembled from the reaction
of 4,4′-bis(imidazol-1-yl)-biphenyl (bibp) with ZnCl2. Through a calcination-thermolysis strategy, sponge-like highly
porous carbon AC-Zn-CP was prepared by employing the
coralloid sample of CP-2-ZX as the precursor. For comparisons,
a series of activated carbon (AC-n) was obtained by the
similar heating process on the mixture of bibp with ZnCl2 at different mass ratios. The results illustrate that the atomically
dispersed ZnCl2 dot in the 1D chain of CP-2-ZX has an in situ activation effect on the generation
of AC-Zn-CP, which can greatly promote the porosity and
achieve high-efficiency utilization of ZnCl2. Therefore,
the atomically dispersed activating agent provides a new method for
environmentally friendly production of porous carbon materials. Significantly,
the AC-Zn-CP electrode displays specific capacitance
of 215 F g–1 in 3 M KOH solution, which will be
largely promoted to 1419 F g–1 in the redox active
electrolyte of K3[Fe(CN)6]/KOH. AC-Zn-CP also shows remarkable cycling stability (the capacity retention
is 89.0% after 5000 cycles). Moreover, the fabricated symmetric supercapacitor
owns a high energy density of 34.8 Wh kg–1 at 785.5
W kg–1. So, the AC-Zn-CP∩K3[Fe(CN)6] system has wide application prospects
in supercapacitors.